Great Expectations: The Role of Rules in Guiding Pro-social Behaviour in Groups with High Versus Low Autistic Traits.

Jameel et al. (2015) asked college students to play a game where they could share points with a partner. Some students scored high on autistic traits, others scored low.

Before the game, the team told half the students a clear rule: "Sharing helps everyone." The rest got no rule. The researchers then counted how often each student shared.

Students with high autistic traits shared less than their low-trait peers. They also said they felt less sympathy for the partner.

Yet when the rule was stated, both groups used it to explain their choices. The rule did not close the sharing gap, but it showed the high-trait students knew the rule.

Brewer et al. (2023) later found autistic adults know the right empathic answers; they just feel unsure. Leila’s rule result lines up: knowledge is there, confidence is not.

Rogers et al. (2007) showed cognitive empathy lags in Asperger syndrome while affective empathy stays strong. Leila’s lower sharing fits the cognitive side, yet the intact rule use echoes the systemizing strength Wakabayashi et al. (2007) saw across cultures.

Sheppard et al. (2016) showed neurotypicals mis-read autistic faces. Together these papers paint a two-way street: autistic people may act less pro-social, and others may mis-read them, so gaps widen on both sides.

You can teach the rule, but you still need to boost the doing. Pair clear rules with rehearsal and reinforcement: model sharing, prompt it, praise it. Also build student confidence by letting them practice in low-pressure pairs before larger groups. Finally, train peers to read and respond to autistic social signals so the bidirectional gap closes.