Here is the abstract from a recently published paper (Izuma 2011):
People act more prosocially when they know they are watched by others, an everyday observation borne out by studies from behavioral economics, social psychology, and cognitive neuroscience. This effect is thought to be mediated by the incentive to improve one’s social reputation, a specific and possibly uniquely human motivation that depends on our ability to represent what other people think of us. Here we tested the hypothesis that social reputation effects are selectively impaired in autism, a developmental disorder characterized in part by impairments in reciprocal social interactions but whose underlying cognitive causes remain elusive. When asked to make real charitable donations in the presence or absence of an observer, matched healthy controls donated significantly more in the observer’s presence than absence, replicating prior work. By contrast, people with high-functioning autism were not influenced by the presence of an observer at all in this task. However, both groups performed significantly better on a continuous performance task in the presence of an observer, suggesting intact general social facilitation in autism. The results argue that people with autism lack the ability to take into consideration what others think of them and provide further support for specialized neural systems mediating the effects of social reputation.
It’s difficult to read that passage without being reminded of Matthew 6:1–4, from the Sermon on the Mount:
Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret Himself shall reward thee openly.
What would Jesus do? Apparently not what non-autistics would do.
(Izuma 2011): Keise Izuma, Kenji Matsumoto, Colin F. Camerer, and Ralph Adolphs. 2011. “Insensitivity to social reputation in autism.” PNAS 2011: 1107038108v1-201107038.
Alan Griswold blogs at Autistic Aphorisms.
Evidence Christ Was Autistic? appears here by permission.
[image via Flickr/Creative Commons]
Alan Griswold on 10/20/11 in Art/Play/Myth, featured | No Comments | Read More
