Empathic reactions to the emotional facial expressions of the elderly

同理心，即对他人情绪的理解和适当反应，对人际交往至关重要。然而，有证据表明，在年轻人和老年人之间的代际互动中，年轻人准确理解老年人情绪的能力和他们对老年人情绪的移情反应倾向都降低了。然而，当人们对他人的情绪没有同理心时，由此产生的互动通常会被认为不那么愉快和有益。在这样的互动中，误解更有可能发生，互动双方可能都不太有兴趣继续或重复互动。这一现象具有潜在的广泛影响，因为老年人和年轻人之间的许多互动是短暂的，但可能会产生重要的后果。这包括医患互动，也包括与各种官方机构和社会工作环境的互动，以及更多的日常互动，如客户关系。在所有这些情况下，当老年人信息中的情感内容被误解或忽视时，就有可能产生不良后果。本研究旨在通过研究老年人情感表达的共情反应在社会和个体差异中的作用来阐明我们对这一过程的理解。次要目的是研究隶属动机对共情和老年人自身共情反应的影响。

Empathy, the understanding of and adequate reaction to the emotions of others, is of central importance to human interaction. However, there is evidence that in intergenerational interactions between younger and older adults, both the ability of younger individuals to accurately understand and their tendency to react empathically to the emotions of the elderly is reduced. Yet, when people do not react empathically to the emotions of others, the resulting interactions are generally perceived to be less pleasant and rewarding. In such interactions misunderstandings are more likely and both interaction partners may be less interested to continue or repeat the interaction. This phenomenon has potentially broad implications as many interactions between the elderly and younger individuals are brief and can have important consequences. These include doctor-patient interactions, but also interactions with a variety of official agencies and in social work settings, as well as more everyday interactions such as customer relations. In all of these, there is potential for adverse consequences when the emotional content of an elderly person’s message is misunderstood or ignored. The present research aims to elucidate our understanding of this process by studying empathic reactions to the emotion expressions of the elderly as a function of sociality as well as individual differences. Secondary goals are to study the influence of affiliation motivation for empathy and the empathic reactions of the elderly themselves.