Aging, Empathy, and Prosociality
Aging, Empathy, and Prosociality
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DOI：
10.1093/geronb/gbt091
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发表时间：
2015-03-01
影响因子：
6.2
通讯作者：
Gutchess, Angela H.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Beadle, Janelle N.;Sheehan, Alexander H.;Gutchess, Angela H.
目标。尽管同理心是年轻人帮助他人的一种公认的动机，但尚不清楚这种动机是否会延伸到年龄。随着年龄的增长，社会情感目标的优先顺序可能会增加帮助他人的显着性(即亲社会行为)，但老年人也会经历认知移情能力的下降。因此，我们调查了同理心和亲社会行为之间关系的年龄差异。参与者是24名年轻(男性=19.8岁)和24名年长(男性=77.9岁)的健康成年人。虽然参与者认为这项研究涉及玩独裁者游戏，但实际上，状态情感共鸣是通过反对者描述他们患癌症的经历而隐含地诱导出来的。亲社会行为是通过参与者向对手提供金钱的方式来衡量的。由于同理心的诱导，老年人比年轻人表现出更多的亲社会行为。在老年人中，状态情感移情评分与亲社会行为之间存在正相关，但在年轻人中则不是，初步证据表明，具有较高特质认知移情能力的老年人，其状态情感移情水平更高。这表明，在与社会情感目标相关的背景下，老年人可能比年轻人更有动机帮助他人，状态情感移情可能是老年人更多亲社会行为的潜在机制。
Objectives. Although empathy is a well-established motivation in younger adults for helping others, it is not known whether this extends to aging. Prioritization of socioemotional goals with age may increase the salience of helping others (i.e., prosocial behavior), but older adults also experience decreased cognitive empathy. Thus, we investigated age-related differences in relationships among empathy and prosocial behavior.Method. Participants were 24 younger (M = 19.8 years) and 24 older (M = 77.9 years) healthy adults. Whereas participants believed the study involved playing the dictator game, in reality, state emotional empathy was induced implicitly through a note from an opponent describing their experience with cancer. Prosocial behavior was measured by participants' monetary offers to that opponent.Results. Older adults showed greater prosocial behavior due to the empathy induction than younger adults. There was a positive association between state emotional empathy ratings and prosocial behavior in older, but not in younger adults, and preliminary evidence for higher state emotional empathy levels in older adults with higher trait cognitive empathy.Discussion. This suggests that in contexts relevant to socioemotional goals, older adults may be more motivated than younger adults to help others and state emotional empathy may be a potential mechanism for greater prosocial behavior in aging.