Individuals with ASD show greater generosity toward strangers

A study by researchers in Germany and the United Kingdom supports earlier findings that compared to neurotypical individuals, individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) exhibit more generosity toward people who are socially distant from them.

Paul AG Forbes and colleagues note, “Previous work suggests autistic individuals show a flatter decline in generosity towards socially distant others compared with non-autistic participants. We investigated whether this enhanced prosociality towards socially distant others in autism was driven by genuinely higher prosociality or instead a preference for repetitive responding.”

The researchers asked 37 individuals with ASD and 38 non-autistic individuals to participate in their study. Participants filled out the Social Value Orientation questionnaire, which asks participants how they would share money with other people at six different degrees of closeness (for instance, a best friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger).

“Compared with non-autistic participants,” the researchers report, “autistic participants were more generous to people they did not feel close to.” This difference, they say, was not due to repetitive responding or to any differences in attitudes about money.

The researchers note that their findings are consistent with those of two previous studies. They suggest that the generosity to strangers exhibited by participants with ASD may reflect a more consistent implementation of fairness norms by autistic individuals. “This is supported,” they say, “by the finding that autistic individuals make more consistent decisions, are more inflexible when following moral rules, and are more likely to endorse fairness as a foundational principle for their moral outlook.”

They conclude, “Our findings support an emerging view that while autistic people often face challenges navigating their social worlds, autism is associated with more prosocial behavior.”

Citations

“Increased prosocial value orientation in autistic adults,” Paul AG Forbes, Gillian Hughes, Leonhard Schilbach, Sarah White, and Tobias Kalenscher, Autism, October 28, 2025 (free online). Address: Paul AG Forbes, Comparative Psychology, Institute of Experimental Psychology, Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, Universitätsstraße 1, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany, [email protected].