ERIC Number: EJ1465533
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025-Feb
Pages: 12
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1362-3613
EISSN: EISSN-1461-7005
Available Date: 0000-00-00
Autistic People Differ from Non-Autistic People Subjectively, but Not Objectively in Their Reasoning
Elif Bastan1,2; Sarah R. Beck1; Andrew D. R. Surtees1,3
Autism: The International Journal of Research and Practice, v29 n2 p355-366 2025
Autism has been linked to difficulties within the social domain and quick decision-making. The Dual Process Theory of Autism proposes that autistic people, compared to non-autistic people, tend to prefer and perform in a more deliberative and less intuitive reasoning style, suggesting enhanced rationality in autism. However, this theory has not been systematically explored across social and non-social domains. In total, 24 autistic adults and 24 age-, gender- and non-verbal cognitive ability-matched non-autistic counterparts completed subjective and objective measures of reasoning. A scenario-based comparison task was employed, covering both social and non-social domains, to assess whether participants consistently used the same strategy across domains or alternated between strategies for their forced-choice judgements. On a subjective measure of reasoning, compared to their counterparts, autistic participants self-reported lower intuition. However, there was an opposite pattern on an objective measure, in that autistic participants responded more intuitively. No significant group differences were identified between autistic and non-autistic participants on self-reported deliberation, objectively measured reflectiveness or forced-choice moral judgements across social and non-social domains. There might be a discrepancy among autistic people for their subjective preferences and objective performances in reasoning, decision-making and judgements.
Descriptors: Autism Spectrum Disorders, Thinking Skills, Differences, Decision Making Skills, Intuition, Adults, Foreign Countries
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: United Kingdom
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: 1University of Birmingham, UK; 2Karadeniz Technical University, Turkiye; 3Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Trust, UK