Thinking about other’s mistakes: contrasting patterns of performance in groups high or low in autistic or psychopathic traits

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Counterfactual thinking refers to thoughts such as, “What if … ?” or “If only … ” that hypothesise about how past events might have turned out differently. It is a functional process, allowing us to reflect upon and solve problems, and to evoke appropriate responses. It is thought to involve both cognitive and emotional processes, and is linked to the development of false belief and moral emotions.

Methods: The present study compared responses to a novel task, “Counterfactual Judgments”, in students who scored high or low on self-report measures of autistic or psychopathic traits, two conditions putatively associated with deficits in empathy.

Results: Contrasting patterns of performance were revealed: those with high versus low autistic traits gave harsher ratings of blame for others’ mistakes and showed reduced sensitivity to punitive counterfactual alternatives, whereas those with high versus low psychopathic traits gave lower ratings for moral judgments of regret and guilt. A self-report questionnaire measure of empathy also provided some evidence of reduced empathic processing in both the high trait groups.

Conclusions: The findings are considered in the light of the possible contributions of cognitive versus emotional processes to counterfactual thinking. The possible implications for managing social dysfunction in clinical populations are also discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Counterfactual-thinking
• moral judgment
• empathy
• autism spectrum disorder
• psychopathy

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, [LJ], upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [grant Number ES/J500185/1].