Abstract
In this chapter we describe research done by our group and others comparing the decision making of persons identified with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) with controls. In this research a variety of tasks and measures were used to create a profile of similarities and differences between groups. In particular, the differences were related to dual process theories that separate intuitive versus deliberative processing of information in decision making and the “theory of mind” account of social deficits associated with autism.
In the latter parts of the chapter group differences were extended to individual differences related to the quality of social functioning using our newly developed index. This index was shown to be predictive of consumer decisions in areas such as social media usage. We then discuss how our inclusion of persons with ASD as a means of extending the range of social functioning ability beyond an unselected sample helped us better understand the role of that trait across the general population and how similar reasoning could be used to study other individual differences associated with different forms of disability.
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Acknowledgments
We thank the Marketing Science Institute (F6786 - 4-1948) and the Tippie College of Business, University of Iowa, for their support of this project and Benjamin Nedderman, Eleanor Burke, and Kerry Strum for their assistance in data collection. Special thanks to Itay Sisso, the Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, for his invaluable assistance in developing rules for identifying and eliminating “bot” respondents.
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Levin, I.P., Gaeth, G.J., Levin, A.M., Chen, S. (2021). Social Functioning and Decision Making: From Group to Individual Differences Across the Autism Spectrum. In: Khemka, I., Hickson, L. (eds) Decision Making by Individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. Positive Psychology and Disability Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74675-9_14
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