Distrust and retaliatory deception in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

This study examined trust and retaliatory deception in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). In Experiment 1, school-aged children with ASD and ability-matched typically developing (TD) children participated in a game to find a hidden prize. An adult repeatedly misinformed children about the whereabouts of the prize. Although children with ASD did not blindly trust all information provided by the informant, they were significantly more trusting of the deceptive adult than TD children. Further, children with ASD were less likely to retaliate by deceiving the adult than TD children. Experiment 2 showed that children with ASD who distrusted a deceptive adult were less flexible and therefore less able to generalize their distrust to different situations compared to TD children.