Discrimination in autism as measured by minimal group and sheer difference experiments

Abstract

Autistic individuals often show fewer social biases than neurotypical people. Whether they show fewer discriminatory tendencies is however unclear. The present study examined discriminatory tendencies in autistic versus neurotypical individuals in the minimal group paradigm and the novel ‘sheer difference’ paradigm. Seventy-five autistic and neurotypical participants were recruited for each group, totalling 150 participants. In the ‘sheer difference’ paradigm, participants received a coin toss outcome in each trial, after which they were tasked to assign points to a single other participant who had received the same versus a different coin flip outcome. In the minimal group paradigm, participants were assigned to a group based on coin flips, and then, they assigned points to members of their own group versus the other group. The ‘sheer difference’ paradigm contributes to the study's aims by testing in autism whether discrimination can also follow from individual rather than group-based difference versus sameness. We found that discriminatory tendencies can come about on both individual and group levels. We did not find clear differences between autistic and neurotypical populations, with implications for the way in which we conceptualize discrimination and understand autism.