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Autistic Traits and Prosocial Behaviour in the General Population: Test of the Mediating Effects of Trait Empathy and State Empathic Concern

  • S.I. : Empathy in Autism
  • Published:
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Abstract

Although the core characteristics associated with autistic traits are impaired social interactions, there are few studies examining how autistic traits translate into prosocial behaviour in daily life. The current study explored the effect of autistic traits on prosocial behaviour and the mediating role of multimodal empathy (trait empathy and state empathic concern). The results showed that autistic traits reduced prosocial behaviour directly and indirectly through complex mediation by multimodal empathy. The findings revealed the internal mechanism of autistic traits impeding prosocial behaviour and expanded our understandings of social behaviour in autism spectrum conditions (ASCs) and autistic traits in the general population. Furthermore, the results have implications for social adaptability interventions for individuals with ASCs and high levels of autistic traits.

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Funding

This study was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Number 31160201) to Wendian Shi.

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  1. Xudong Zhao and Xiujun Li have contributed equally to this work as co-first authors.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, School of Education, Shanghai Normal University, No. 100, Guilin Road, Shanghai, China

    Xudong Zhao, Youming Song & Wendian Shi

  2. School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China

    Xiujun Li

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  1. Xudong Zhao
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  2. Xiujun Li
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  4. Wendian Shi
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Contributions

The individual contributions of authors to the manuscript: XZ and XL conceived of the study, participated in its design and coordination and performed the statistical analysis and drafted the manuscript; YS performed the measurement and participated in the interpretation of the data; WS conceived of the study, and participated in its design and coordination and helped to draft the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Wendian Shi.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Zhao, X., Li, X., Song, Y. et al. Autistic Traits and Prosocial Behaviour in the General Population: Test of the Mediating Effects of Trait Empathy and State Empathic Concern. J Autism Dev Disord 49, 3925–3938 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-018-3745-0

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