Comparative Analysis of Sentiments in Children with Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Abstract

In-group favoritism is the tendency of people where, individuals tend to punish transgressors with varying intensity based on whether they belong to their own group or not. In this cross-sectional analytical study, we examine matched samples of children with developmental disorders, observing their perspectives on punishment after watching two videos in which rules are broken. Data (video 1) shows a football player from the viewer’s country scoring a handball goal, while in data (video 2), a foreign player replicates the same action against the host nation. Every contestant viewed both videos, and their responses were then compared. Our proposed methods compare and analyze the data to determine player’s opinions using artificial intelligence-based machine learning such as text analysis and opinion, extract on- favorable, unfavorable, neutral feelings, or emotions. In both sets of data, the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) group displayed negative emotions for both video 1 (M = −.1; CI 90% −.41 to .21) and video 2 (t (7) = 1.54, p =.12; M = -.42; CI 90% 76 to -.08). On the contrary, the groups with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), learning disabilities (LD), and intellectual disability (ID) had a favorable reaction to video1 but an unfavorable reaction to video 2. Children diagnosed with ASD typically display a consistent adherence to rules, even when those breaking the rules are not part of their group. This behavior may be linked to lower levels of empathy.