Advances in Psychology
Vol. 12  No. 10 ( 2022 ), Article ID: 57363 , 5 pages
10.12677/AP.2022.1210437

自闭症谱系障碍道德判断的特点及未来研究 方向综述

高美

岭南师范学院广东省特殊儿童发展与教育重点实验室,广东 湛江

收稿日期:2022年8月14日;录用日期:2022年10月21日;发布日期:2022年10月31日

摘要

自闭症谱系障碍是一种遗传性神经发育障碍,典型特征包括社交互动障碍和刻板兴趣及行为。在临床上,自闭症谱系个体普遍表现出社会交往障碍,已有大量研究表明他们在道德判断和道德推理的发展和执行方面与正常个体存在差异。道德推理和判断能力的提升有助于引导自闭症谱系个体的行为,促进其人际关系的发展。本文系统的总结了自闭症谱系道德判断的特点,并给出了未来研究的方向。

关键词

自闭症谱系,道德判断,道德推理,意图,社会认知

Review of Characteristics and Future Research Directions of Moral Judgment in Autism Spectrum Disorders

Mei Gao

Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Development and Education for Special Children, Lingnan Normal University, Zhanjiang Guangdong

Received: Aug. 14th, 2022; accepted: Oct. 21st, 2022; published: Oct. 31st, 2022

ABSTRACT

Autism spectrum disorder is an inherited neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impairments in social interaction and stereotyped interests and behaviors. Clinically, individuals on the autism spectrum generally exhibit social interaction impairment, and numerous studies have shown that they differ from normal individuals in the development and execution of moral judgment and moral reasoning. Improvements in moral reasoning and judgment can help guide the behavior of individuals on the autism spectrum and facilitate the development of their interpersonal relationships. This paper systematically summarizes the relevant literature on moral judgment of the autism spectrum, and gives directions for future research.

Keywords:Autism Spectrum, Moral Judgment, Moral Reasoning, Intention, Social Cognition

Copyright © 2022 by author(s) and Hans Publishers Inc.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY 4.0).

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

1. 引言

自闭症谱系障碍(Autism spectrum disorder, ASD)对儿童,家庭,学校和社会的影响不言而喻,同时也给家庭和社会带来了一定的负担。目前,自闭症谱系障碍的发病率快速增加,已达到68:1的比例(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2016)。这其中只有5%~15%的自闭症谱系成人能够正常生活、工作、学习。自闭症谱系障碍是一种遗传性神经发育障碍,典型特征包括社交互动障碍和刻板兴趣及行为(American Psychiatric Association, 2013)。临床上,自闭症谱系个体普遍存在社会交往方面的障碍(Howlin et al., 2013)、在社会交往初期表现出不能有效识别他人的交际意图(Happé et al., 2015)、在交往过程中不能对他人的社交信号给与恰当的反应(Sigman et al., 1992)、对他人心理状态的表征程度也比较低(Baron-Cohen et al., 1985)等方面的缺陷。这些方面的挑战可能部分源于自闭症谱系个体在道德发展和道德判断能力方面的明显滞后。在社交情境中,对社会规范或道德规范的遵守一旦表现出与正常儿童的差异,自闭症谱系个体可能就会遭遇人际交往的挫折(Rakoczy et al., 2016),表现出人际退缩和刻板性的行为。

研究者们对自闭症谱系个体在道德判断和推理方面的特点进行了大量的研究(Bellesi et al., 2018),为促进自闭症谱系个体更好地适应社会、进行正常的人际交往提供了理论指导。本文综述了自闭症谱系个体道德判断的特点,并提出了未来研究的方向。

2. 自闭症谱系个体道德判断的特点

2.1. 区分习俗违规和道德违规的特点

对习俗违规行为和道德违规行为进行区分,是个体社会化程度良好、适应社会的体现。尽管自闭症个体的某些心智技能受损、平均智力水平较低,但他们已具备区分习俗违规和道德违规的能力(冯源和苏彦捷,2005),与正常个体在此方面的相似性大于差异性。早在Blair的研究中就已经表明,自闭症谱系儿童与中度学习困难儿童和正常儿童在区分习俗违规和道德违规方面没有区别,即使有害行为得到权威的认可他们也会判断此行为是错误的(Blair et al., 1996)。

情感状态受影响的程度决定了个体对道德事件的判断,消极情绪的感知是其中的一个指标。自闭症谱系个体会根据受害者痛苦的程度做出道德判断,但当受害者并未受到道德上的委屈时,他们也能感知到痛苦的存在(Leslie et al., 2006)。Weisberg和Leslie (2012)研究了受害者的痛苦程度和自闭症儿童区分道德违规和传统违规能力的关系,当行为者做出道德违规的行为导致受害者哭泣时,自闭症儿童会显著受到此情境的影响,而正常儿童在此情况下受到的影响就比较小。这可能是因为自闭症谱系儿童在道德判断过程中更倾向于依赖事件的结果,而不是此行为意图或目的。

在认知灵活性方面,自闭症谱系个体对习俗违规的判断表现出普遍的刻板性(Shulman et al., 2012)。当道德事件中出现越级行为时,自闭症谱系个体表现出对行为者更大程度的厌恶(Zalla & Leboyer, 2011)。Shulman等人(2012)研究了自闭症青少年和正常青少年在习俗违规和道德违规上的差异,发现自闭症青少年认为习俗违规行为更普遍。在被要求习俗违规/道德违规行为进行辩护时,自闭症青少年的理由更具体、更不灵活、更缺乏抽象的规则。在另一项研究中,自闭症成年人更多使用基于规则的理由进行道德判断,而正常个体更关注他人的福利(Zalla & Leboyer, 2011)。这可能是因为大多数自闭症谱系个体的认知能力都比较低,他们在进行道德判断时更倾向于借助情感同理心的作用,以弥补认知同理心的相对缺乏。而以往的研究表明,在对道德违规行为的判断中,认知同理心起主要作用(Shulman et al., 2012)。

在对群体和社会文化更敏感的不同道德领域,自闭症谱系个体的道德判断也表现出偏离(Haidt et al., 2001)。在一项研究中,自闭症个体对纯粹/厌恶的判断表现得更严厉,这可能是因为他们对此维度更敏感(Crane et al., 2009),导致他们更严格地判断这些违规行为。而在另一项研究中,自闭症谱系个体把权威视为一个道德概念(Senland et al., 2016),有害的行为即使得到权威的认可也是错误的,这也证明自闭症谱系个体认知不灵活和刻板性。自闭症谱系个体表现出与正常个体之间的差异可为理解道德推理和道德判断的发展演变对比。

2.2. 基于意图的道德判断的特点

人进行道德判断的首要参考因素是基于关注行为者的意图(Salvano-Pardieu et al., 2016),根据他人行为的意图来决定下一步的行为。意图推断的过程非常快,约在几百毫秒的时间内完成(Malle & Holbrook, 2012)。人对于行为者意图的判断具有显著的进化意义。虽然自闭症个体对于意图的判断与正常个体相比存在明显的差异,他们更倾向于依赖综合的生命特征感知意图,但是他们在对已于知觉的准确性和反应模式上并未存在差异(McAleer et al., 2011)。

在道德判断中,意图和结果是对行为者判断的一个很重要的标准,而自闭症儿童在道德判断时显示出与正常儿童存在某些方面的不同。当意图和结果不一致时,与智商低于平均水平的非自闭症儿童相比,语言智商低于正常水平的自闭症儿童更关注结果而不是意图(Grant et al., 2005)。当行为、结果和人的特征不一致时,自闭症儿童较少使用与人有关的信息进行道德判断(Komeda et al., 2016)。自闭症个体对罪责的道德判断最常基于结果,其次是规则,基于意图的判断最少;而正常个体对罪责的道德判断通常基于意图,其次是后果,最后是规则(Fadda et al., 2016)。

自闭症儿童道德判断的能力发展迟缓(Cushman et al., 2013)。但随着认知的发展,年龄较大的自闭症成年个体基于结果判断的能力也得到发展(Buon et al., 2013)。自闭症成年人在对有中性意图和结果的行为进行道德判断时,做出了比有消极意图和结果的行为更宽松的评价(Baez et al., 2012)。一项使用社交场景进行的研究发现,自闭症成人个体对同学的酒后失言做出更严厉的评价并且更可能做出报复性的行为。当有意伤害事件中出现中性结果时,自闭症个体也会基于行为者的意图进行道德判断(Moran et al., 2011)。从自闭症个体对有意和无意违规行为的道德判断更严厉来看(Bellesi et al., 2018),自闭症个体与正常个体道德判断的差异不仅体现在对意图的揣测。

有研究者认为自闭症个体道德判断的“不成熟”,是由于对他人心理状态的理解存在缺陷(Margoni & Surian, 2016)。但是,自闭症个体在进行道德判断时更依赖结果并不表明他们忽视了意图的重要性——当要判断意图和结果一致的罪责时,自闭症个体也会基于意图进行判断(Li & Liu, 2017),但是,这种基于意图的判断是基于结果而非事件线索的推理。结果和意图对于自闭症个体的道德推理都很重要,但是当结果和意图不一致时,他们更倾向于依据结果进行道德评价和判断。这是可能是因为自闭症个体更多使用将结果作为推断意图的启发式方法,而正常个体依赖于更自动的心智化技能来推断意图和其后的道德判断。目前尚无研究表明这种补偿是否受言语或非言语认知技能的调节(Patil et al., 2016)。

3. 未来研究方向

首先,利用纵向设计的优势可以更好地研究自闭症谱系道德不同阶段的特点。纵向研究设计在时间上需要几年甚至几十年的时间,能够很好地追踪自闭症谱系儿童在自闭症症状不同阶段表现出的道德判断和道德推理的特点,同质无关因素的影响。目前的研究更多的是分别阐释理性和情绪对社会认知的影响,涉及两者联合的作用还较少,理性和情绪在社会认知中的作用也可以利用纵向设计更好地区分和整合。要更好地探究自闭症谱系道德判断和推理的阶段性特征可以使用计算机建模进行分析(Weisberg & Leslie, 2012)。

其次,自闭症谱系个体道德判断和道德推理过程中对意图和结果权重的考虑,要探究此心理过程所涉及的相关脑区及其神经机制。对于自闭症个体在道德判断和推理的过程中更多地依赖结果,这可能是因为大多数自闭症谱系个体的认知能力普遍较低,没有相关事件的自动化心理表征,而表现出认知和情绪上的缺陷。而一些自闭症症状的凸显又使得某些大脑研究的手段不可用,在以后认知神经机制的研究可加入情绪唤醒和认知激活的客观测量,来弥补行为研究方面的不足。

基金项目

湛江市哲学社会科学规划项目(项目批准号:ZJ22YB103)。

文章引用

高 美. 自闭症谱系障碍道德判断的特点及未来研究方向综述
Review of Characteristics and Future Research Directions of Moral Judgment in Autism Spectrum Disorders[J]. 心理学进展, 2022, 12(10): 3591-3595. https://doi.org/10.12677/AP.2022.1210437

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