Increased prosocial value orientation in autistic adults.

ABSTRACT: Social discounting describes the tendency to give fewer resources to those we feel less close to. Previous work suggests autistic individuals show a flatter decline in generosity towards socially distant others compared with non-autistic participants. We investigated whether this enhanced prosociality towards socially distant others in autism was driven by genuinely higher prosociality or instead a preference for repetitive responding. We measured prosocial preferences in 37 autistic and 38 non-autistic adults using the social value orientation questionnaire, where participants allocated money between themselves and people at six different social distances (e.g. friend vs stranger). We replicated previous findings by showing that autistic adults were more prosocial than non-autistic adults

SUBMITTER: Forbes PA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12804402 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature