Department of Cognitive Sciences, Psychology, Education and Cultural Studies, University of Messina, Messina, Italy.
Child Neuropsychiatry Unit, Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Catania, Catania, Italy.
J Neuropsychol. 2024 Jun;18(2):217-225. doi: 10.1111/jnp.12350. Epub 2023 Oct 3.
Despite the growing interest on how Tourette syndrome (TS) affects social cognition skills, this field remains to date relatively under-explored. Here, we aim to advance knowledge on the topic by studying moral decision-making and moral reasoning in a group of adolescents with TS and a group of healthy controls. Overall, we found higher endorsement (i.e. a greater 'yes' response rate) for utilitarian solutions of incidental and instrumental moral dilemmas in TS compared to controls. By contrast, we reported an overall higher tendency of TS individuals to apply principles described in the moral foundation questionnaire to establish whether something is morally right or wrong. Our results document intact moral reasoning in TS and suggest that a deficit in suppressing inappropriate behaviours and/or altered sense of agency might be responsible for their higher utilitarian moral decision-making.
尽管人们对妥瑞氏症（TS）如何影响社会认知技能越来越感兴趣，但迄今为止，这一领域的研究相对较少。在这里，我们旨在通过研究一组妥瑞氏症青少年和一组健康对照组的道德决策和道德推理来增进对这一主题的认识。总的来说，我们发现妥瑞氏症患者比对照组更倾向于支持（即更高的“是”反应率）偶发和工具性道德困境的功利主义解决方案。相比之下，我们报告说，妥瑞氏症患者更倾向于运用道德基础问卷中描述的原则来确定某件事是否道德正确或错误。我们的研究结果记录了妥瑞氏症患者的道德推理能力完好无损，并表明抑制不当行为的能力不足和/或代理感改变可能是导致他们功利主义道德决策更高的原因。
