Hostname: page-component-89b8bd64d-sd5qd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-07T11:01:13.986Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Social motivation in autism: Gaps and directions for measurement of a putative core construct

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 July 2019

Cara M. Keifer Open the ORCID record for Cara M. Keifer [Opens in a new window] ,
Gabriel S. Dichter Open the ORCID record for Gabriel S. Dichter [Opens in a new window] ,
James C. McPartland Open the ORCID record for James C. McPartland [Opens in a new window]  and
Matthew D. Lerner Open the ORCID record for Matthew D. Lerner [Opens in a new window]
Cara M. Keifer
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794-2500. cara.keifer@stonybrook.edumatthew.lerner@stonybrook.eduhttps://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/psychology/graduate/profiles/cara-keifer.htmlhttps://www.lernerlab.com/lab-director.html
Gabriel S. Dichter
Affiliation:
Departments of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience, Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7255. dichter@med.unc.eduhttp://can.unc.edu/Can/index.php/members/
James C. McPartland
Affiliation:
Yale Child Study Center, New Haven, CT 06520. james.mcpartland@yale.eduhttps://medicine.yale.edu/lab/mcpartland/people/
Matthew D. Lerner
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794-2500. cara.keifer@stonybrook.edumatthew.lerner@stonybrook.eduhttps://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/psychology/graduate/profiles/cara-keifer.htmlhttps://www.lernerlab.com/lab-director.html
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This commentary highlights the observation that social motivation is usually an imprecisely specified construct. We suggest four social motivation conceptualizations across levels of analysis and explore where the target article situates among these. We then offer theoretical and practical guidance for operationalization and measurement of social motivation to support more comprehensive future research on this complex construct in the autism literature.

Information

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 42 , 2019 , e95
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Bayer, H. M. & Glimcher, P. W. (2005) Midbrain dopamine neurons encode a quantitative reward prediction error signal. Neuron 47(1):129–41. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2005.05.020.Google Scholar
Benning, S. D. (2011) Postauricular and superior auricular reflex modulation during emotional pictures and sounds. Psychophysiology 48(3):410–14. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1021/nn300902w.Release.Google Scholar
Berridge, K. C. & Kringelbach, M. L. (2008) Affective neuroscience of pleasure: Reward in humans and animals. Psychopharmacology 199(3):457–80. Available at:http://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-008-1099-6.Google Scholar
Berridge, K. C. & Kringelbach, M. L. (2011) Building a neuroscience of pleasure and well-being. Psychology of Well-Being: Theory, Research and Practice 1(1):3. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1186/2211-1522-1-3.Google Scholar
Berridge, K. C. & Robinson, T. E. (2003) Parsing reward. Trends in Neurosciences 26(9):507–13. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0166-2236(03)00233-9.Google Scholar
Berridge, K. C., Robinson, T. E. & Aldridge, J. W. (2009) Dissecting components of reward: “Liking,” “wanting,” and learning. Current Opinion In Pharmacology 9(1):65–73. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1016/j.coph.2008.12.014.Google Scholar
Bottini, S. (2018) Social reward processing in individuals with autism spectrum disorder: A systematic review of the social motivation hypothesis. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders 45:9–26. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rasd.2017.10.001.Google Scholar
Castro, D. C. & Berridge, K. C. (2014) Opioid hedonic hotspot in nucleus accumbens shell: Mu, delta, and kappa maps for enhancement of sweetness “liking” and “wanting.” Journal of Neuroscience 34(12):4239–50. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4458-13.2014.Google Scholar
Chevallier, C., Kohls, G., Troiani, V., Brodkin, E. S. & Schultz, R. T. (2012b) The social motivation theory of autism. Changes 29(6):997–1003. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.biotechadv.2011.08.021.Secreted.Google Scholar
Clements, C. C., Zoltowski, A. R., Yankowitz, L. D., Yerys, B. E., Schultz, R. T. & Herrington, J. D. (2018) Evaluation of the social motivation hypothesis of autism: A systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA Psychiatry 75(8):797–808. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2018.1100.Google Scholar
Constantino, J. N. (2012) Social Responsiveness Scale (2nd ed.). Western Psychological Services.Google Scholar
Dawson, G., Webb, S. J., Wijsman, E., Schellenberg, G., Estes, A., Munson, J. & Faja, S. (2005) Neurocognitive and electrophysiological evidence of altered face processing in parents of children with autism: Implications for a model of abnormal development of social brain circuitry in autism. Development and Psychopathology 17(3):679–97.Google Scholar
Dayan, P. & Berridge, K. C. (2014) Model-based and model-free Pavlovian reward learning: Revaluation, revision, and revelation. Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral Neuroscience 14(2):473–92. Available at: http://doi.org/10.3758/s13415-014-0277-8.Google Scholar
Dichter, G. S., Richey, J. A., Rittenberg, A. M., Sabatino, A. & Bodfish, J. W. (2012) Reward circuitry function in autism during face anticipation and outcomes. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 42(2):147–60. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-011-1221-1.Google Scholar
Dichter, G. S., Smoski, M. J., Kampov-Polevoy, A. B., Gallop, R. & Garbutt, J. C. (2010) Unipolar depression does not moderate responses to the sweet taste test. Depression and Anxiety 27(9):859–63. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1002/da.20690.Unipolar.Google Scholar
Dichter, G. S., Tomarken, A. J. & Baucom, B. R. (2002) Startle modulation before, during and after exposure to emotional stimuli. International Journal of Psychophysiology 43(2):191–96. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1016/S0167-8760(01)00170-2.Google Scholar
Gillan, C. M., Papmeyer, M., Morein-Zamir, S., Sahakian, B. J., Fineberg, N. A., Robbins, T. W. & De Wit, S. (2011) Disruption in the balance between goal-directed behavior and habit learning in obsessive-compulsive disorder. American Journal of Psychiatry 168(7):718–26. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2011.10071062.Google Scholar
Graybiel, A. M. (2008) Habits, rituals, and the evaluative brain. Annual Review of Neuroscience 31(1):359–87. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.neuro.29.051605.112851.Google Scholar
Hackley, S. A., Muñoz, M. Á., Hebert, K., Valle-Inclán, F. & Vila, J. (2009) Reciprocal modulation of eye-blink and pinna-flexion components of startle during reward anticipation. Psychophysiology 46(6):1154–59. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8986.2009.00867.x.Google Scholar
Ikemoto, S. & Panksepp, J. (1999) The role of nucleus accumbens dopamine in motivated behavior: A unifying interpretation with special reference to reward-seeking. Brain Research Reviews 31(1):6–41. http://doi.org/10.1016/S0165-0173(99)00023-5.Google Scholar
Kim, B. W., Kennedy, D. N., Lehár, J., Lee, M. J., Blood, A. J., Lee, S., Perlis, R. H., Smoller, J. W., Morris, R., Fava, M., and Breiter, H. C. (2010) Recurrent, robust and scalable patterns underlie human approach and avoidance. PLOS ONE 5(5). Available at: http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0010613.Google Scholar
Knowlton, B. J. & Squire, L. R. (1994) The information acquired during artificial grammar learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 20(1):79–91. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8138790.Google Scholar
Kohls, G., Chevallier, C., Troiani, V. & Schultz, R. T. (2012) Social “wanting” dysfunction in autism: Neurobiological underpinnings and treatment implications. Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders 4:1–20. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1866-1955-4-10.Google Scholar
Kohls, G., Peltzer, J., Schulte-Rüther, M., Kamp-Becker, I., Remschmidt, H., Herpertz-Dahlmann, B. & Konrad, K. (2011) Atypical brain responses to reward cues in autism as revealed by event-related potentials. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 41(11):1523–33. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-011-1177-1.Google Scholar
Liu, Y., Huang, H., McGinnis-Deweese, M., Keil, A. & Ding, M. (2012) Neural substrate of the late positive potential in emotional processing. Journal of Neuroscience 32(42):14563–72. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3109-12.2012.Google Scholar
Morgan, G. A., Wang, J., Barrett, K. C., Liao, H.-F., Wang, P.-J., Huang, S.-Y. & Jozsa, K. (2015) The Revised Dimensions of Mastery Questionnaire (DMQ 18). Colorado State University.Google Scholar
Rolls, E. T., Kringelbach, M. L. & De Araujo, I. E. T. (2003) Different representations of pleasant and unpleasant odours in the human brain. European Journal of Neuroscience 18(3):695–703. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1046/j.1460-9568.2003.02779.x.Google Scholar
Schultz, W. (1998) Predictive reward signal of dopamine neurons. Journal of Neurophysiology 80(1):1–27. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1152/jn.1998.80.1.1.Google Scholar
Schultz, W. (2000) Multiple reward signals in the brain. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 1(3):199–207. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1038/35044563.Google Scholar
Schultz, W., Dayan, P. & Montague, P. R. (1997) A neural substrate of prediction and reward [review]. Science 275(5306):1593–99.Google Scholar
Scott-Van Zeeland, A. A., Dapretto, M., Ghahremani, D. G., Poldrack, R. A., & Bookheimer, S. Y. (2010) Reward processing in autism. Autism Research 3(2):53–67. Available at: https://dx.doi.org/10.1002.aur.122.Google Scholar
Sepeta, L., Tsuchiya, N., Davies, M. S., Sigman, M., Bookheimer, S. Y. & Dapretto, M. (2012) Abnormal social reward processing in autism as indexed by pupillary responses to happy faces. Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders 4(17). Available at: http://doi.org/10.1007/BF02172225.Google Scholar
Small, D. M. (2010) Taste representation in the human insula. Brain Structure & Function 214(5–6):551–61. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-010-0266-9.Google Scholar
Smith, K. S. & Berridge, K. C. (2007) Opioid limbic circuit for reward: Interaction between hedonic hotspots of nucleus accumbens and ventral pallidum. Journal of Neuroscience 27(7):1594–1605. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4205-06.2007.Google Scholar
Smith, K. S. & Graybiel, A. M. (2014) Investigating habits: Strategies, technologies and models. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 8:39. Available at: http://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2014.00039.Google Scholar
Stavropoulos, K. K. M. & Carver, L. J. (2014) Reward anticipation and processing of social versus nonsocial stimuli in children with and without autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines 12:1398–1408. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.12270.Google Scholar
Tindell, A. J., Smith, K. S., Peciña, S., Berridge, K. C. & Aldridge, J. W. (2006) Ventral pallidum firing codes hedonic reward: When a bad taste turns good. Journal of Neurophysiology 96(5):2399–2409. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1152/jn.00576.2006.Google Scholar
Treadway, M. T., Buckholtz, J. W., Schwartzman, A. N., Lambert, W. E. & Zald, D. H. (2009) Worth the “EEfRT”? The effort expenditure for rewards task as an objective measure of motivation and anhedonia. PLOS ONE 4(8):1–9. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0006598.Google Scholar
Tricomi, E., Balleine, B. W. & O'Doherty, J. P. (2009) A specific role for posterior dorsolateral striatum in human habit learning. European Journal of Neuroscience 29(11):2225–32. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-9568.2009.06796.x.Google Scholar
Watson, K. K., Werling, D. M., Zucker, N. L. & Platt, M. L. (2010) Altered social reward and attention in anorexia nervosa. Frontiers in Psychology 1(SEP). Available at: http://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2010.00036.Google Scholar
Yin, H. H. & Knowlton, B. J. (2006) The role of the basal ganglia in habit formation. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 7(6):464–76. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1038/nrn1919.Google Scholar