O'Connor, RAG;
Stockmann, L;
Rieffe, C;
(2019)
Spontaneous helping behavior of autistic and non-autistic (Pre-)adolescents: A matter of motivation?
Autism Research
, 12
(12)
pp. 1796-1804.
10.1002/aur.2182.
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Abstract
Young autistic people have a range of social difficulties, but it is not yet clear how these difficulties can be explained. In addition, emerging research is suggesting that autistic girls may differ from boys in terms of their social behaviors, but yet unknown is if they differ in terms of their pro‐social behavior, such as helping. The present study investigated spontaneous helping behavior using an in vivo paradigm and related this to participants' levels of social motivation (based on parent reports). Participants were 233 autistic and non‐autistic (pre‐)adolescents (M = 12.46 years, SD = 15.54 months). Our results demonstrated that autistic girls and boys have lower levels of social motivation compared to their non‐autistic peers, but social motivation was unrelated to helping behavior in both groups. Furthermore, when the experimenter needed help, the autistic boys and girls looked and smiled to the same extent as their peers of the same gender, but they actually helped significantly less than their non‐autistic peers. However, most autistic youngsters did help, highlighting the great individual differences in autistic individuals. We discuss the possibility that lower levels of helping behavior are due to difficulty initiating action in a social context, rather than lower social motivation.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Spontaneous helping behavior of autistic and non-autistic (Pre-)adolescents: A matter of motivation? |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1002/aur.2182 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.2182 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution‐NonCommercial‐NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non‐commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ |
| Keywords: | pro-social; helping; autism; gender; social motivation |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Social Research Institute |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10084418 |
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