Abstract
Facial impressions of trustworthiness guide social decisions in the general population, as shown by financial lending in economic Trust Games. As an exception, autistic boys fail to use facial impressions to guide trust decisions, despite forming typical facial trustworthiness impressions (Autism, 19, 2015a, 1002). Here, we tested whether this dissociation between forming and using facial impressions of trustworthiness extends to neurotypical men with high levels of autistic traits. Forty‐six Caucasian men completed a multi‐turn Trust Game, a facial trustworthiness impressions task, the Autism‐Spectrum Quotient, and two Theory of Mind tasks. As hypothesized, participants’ levels of autistic traits had no observed effect on the impressions formed, but negatively predicted the use of those impressions in trust decisions. Thus, the dissociation between forming and using facial impressions of trustworthiness extends to the broader autism phenotype. More broadly, our results identify autistic traits as an important source of individual variation in the use of facial impressions to guide behaviour. Interestingly, failure to use these impressions could potentially represent rational behaviour, given their limited validity.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 617-634 |
Number of pages | 18 |
Journal | British Journal of Psychology |
Volume | 110 |
Issue number | 4 |
Early online date | 13 Nov 2018 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Nov 2019 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders. Grant Number: CE110001021
ARC Discovery Grant. Grant Number: DP170104602
ARC Cross‐Program Award
Keywords
- autistic traits
- facial impressions
- trust behaviour
- individual differences
- broader autistic phenotypes
- facial trustworthiness