title: Moral and social reasoning in autism spectrum disorders.
abstract: This study compared moral and social reasoning in individuals with and without autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Ten familiar schoolyard transgressions were shown to 18 participants with and 18 participants without ASD. They judged the appropriateness of the behavior and explained their judgments. Analysis of the rationales revealed that participants with typical development used significantly more abstract rules than participants with ASD, who provided more nonspecific condemnations of the behaviors. Both groups judged social conventional transgressions to be more context-bound than moral transgressions, with this distinction more pronounced in typically developing individuals, who also provided significantly more examples of situations in which the depicted behaviors would be acceptable. The educational implications of these findings for individuals with ASD are discussed.
authors.affiliation: School of Social Work, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, 91905 Jerusalem, Israel. mscory@mscc.huji.ac.il
authors.forename: Cory
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Shulman
authors.forename: Ainat
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Guberman
authors.forename: Noa
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Shiling
authors.forename: Nirit
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Bauminger
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002659:Child Development Disorders, Pervasive / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D035863:Moral Development; D011340:Problem Solving; D012016:Reference Values; D012919:Social Behavior; D012931:Social Environment; D012938:Social Perception; D012945:Social Values