Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada.
Department of Pediatrics, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada.
Dev Psychopathol. 2020 Aug;32(3):1069-1085. doi: 10.1017/S0954579419001160.
Moral reasoning and decision making help guide behavior and facilitate interpersonal relationships. Accounts of morality that position commonsense psychology as the foundation of moral development, (i.e., rationalist theories) have dominated research in morality in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Given the well-documented differences in commonsense psychology among autistic individuals, researchers have investigated whether the development and execution of moral judgement and reasoning differs in this population compared with neurotypical individuals. In light of the diverse findings of investigations of moral development and reasoning in ASD, a summation and critical evaluation of the literature could help make sense of what is known about this important social-cognitive skill in ASD. To that end, we conducted a systematic review of the literature investigating moral decision making among autistic children and adults. Our search identified 29 studies. In this review, we synthesize the research in the area and provide suggestions for future research. Such research could include the application of an alternative theoretical framework to studying morality in autism spectrum disorder that does not assume a deficits-based perspective.
道德推理和决策有助于指导行为和促进人际关系。将常识心理学置于道德发展基础的道德解释（即理性主义理论）主导了自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）中的道德研究。鉴于自闭症个体在常识心理学方面存在众所周知的差异，研究人员已经调查了与神经典型个体相比，该人群的道德判断和推理的发展和执行是否存在差异。鉴于 ASD 中道德发展和推理的调查结果存在差异，对文献进行总结和批判性评估可以帮助理解 ASD 中这种重要的社会认知技能。为此，我们对自闭症儿童和成人的道德决策进行了系统的文献回顾。我们的搜索确定了 29 项研究。在本综述中，我们综合了该领域的研究，并为未来的研究提供了建议。此类研究可以包括应用替代理论框架来研究自闭症谱系障碍中的道德，而不是假设基于缺陷的观点。
