HIGH-VERBATIM, LOW-GIST THINKING STYLES IN FRAMING BEHAVIOR: A TEST OF FUZZY TRACE THEORY
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This study examines how traits associated with autism and psychopathy affect risky decision-making and framing behavior. It has been predicted that both disorders are characterized by a low-gist, high-verbatim thinking style, which should result in a reduction of gist-based effects such as the framing effect. We find that autistic traits, specifically ones associated with struggling to ‘get the gist’ of information, and psychopathic traits are both related to lower levels of framing behavior. Additionally, further analyses revealed differences in framing, reward sensitivity, and order effects between participants in the upper and lower quartile of our composite Gist Struggles Autism scale and Psychopathic Traits scale. Results support predictions based on fuzzy-trace theory conceptions of how preferential reliance on gist and verbatim information affects decision-making.