Empathic reactions to the emotional facial expressions of the elderly

同理心是对他人情绪的理解和适当反应，对人类互动至关重要。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同情反应的倾向都有所下降。然而，当人们对他人的情绪没有同理心时，所产生的互动通常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，互动双方可能对继续或重复互动不太感兴趣。这种现象可能具有广泛的影响，因为老年人和年轻人之间的许多互动都是短暂的，并且可能产生重要的后果。这些包括医患互动，但也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，如果老年人信息中的情感内容被误解或忽视，就有可能产生不良后果。本研究旨在阐明我们对这一过程的理解，通过研究移情反应的情感表达的老年人作为一个功能的社会性以及个体差异。第二个目的是研究亲和动机对共情的影响以及老年人自身的共情反应。

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.