Comparison of Cognitive Empathy, Emotional Empathy, and Social Functioning in Different Age Groups

Abstract

Empathic responses and optimum social functioning are associated with psychological and physical health benefits. The aim of this study was to compare emotional empathy, cognitive empathy, and social functioning among different age groups, including adolescence, young adulthood, middle adulthood, and late adulthood. One hundred and ninety-six people (92 males, 104 females) with the age range of 14 to 85 assigned to four age groups (adolescents, young adults, middle adults, and older adults) participated in this study. Participants were asked to complete the Empathy Quotient, the Revised Eyes Test, and Social Functioning Scale. The results showed that there were significant differences between older adults and other groups. Emotional empathy increased in older people, but there were deficits in some aspects of cognitive empathy. Also, the findings showed an age-related decline in social functioning. Due to deficits in cognitive empathy affected by ageing, older adults showed some impairment in their ability to interpret emotional cues. This age-related decline in cognitive empathy might be a reason for weak social functioning in older adults. Therefore, considering these elements would be helpful to provide healthcare strategies for elderly people.

Prevention of Deviant Pathways and Rehabilitation from Criminal Activities: Social School by “O Companheiro” Providing an Alternative to the Prison System

“…Older participants showed more empathic concern and less personal distress in situations that presented negative emotions, whereas for situations that presented positive emotions, older participants demonstrated more empathic concern and personal distress [31]. This dissociation between cognitive aspects of others' understanding and affective aspects, in which the first showed a decrease and the second presents no change or increases with age, is confirmed in other independent studies [32,33]; the following are some conflicting results [34,35].…”

The Affective Neuroscience of Aging

“…When emotional and cognitive empathy are distinguished using separate sub scales, cognitive but not affective empathy is lower among older than younger adults (Bailey et al, 2008, Beadle et al, 2012, but see Khanjani et al, 2015). A limitation of these studies is their cross-sectional design.…”

“…As outlined in the previous section, older adults are less likely to attend to eyes than younger adults. They also tend to be impaired at a common theory-of-mind test using pictures of eyes (Bailey et al, 2008, Khanjani et al, 2015, Phillips et al, 2002, Slessor et al, 2007), although their impairment also extends to inferring age and gender based on eyes (Slessor et al, 2007) so does not seem to be emotion specific. Likewise, when given stories testing the ability to make theory-of-mind inferences about the beliefs of others, older adults are impaired, but they tend to be similarly impaired at making inferences about physical or mechanical causation (German and Hehman, 2006, Happé et al, 1998, Slessor et al, 2007, but see Maylor et al, 2002).…”

Comparing factors related to school-bullying and cyber-bullying

“…Age can be a factor. Khanjani, Mosanezhad Jeddi, Hekmati, Khalilzade, … and Ashrafian (2015) found that affective empathy increases with age. A common finding amongst the studies was that victimisation is negatively associated with cognitive empathy, but not with affective empathy (Noorden, Haselager, Cillessen & Bukowski, 2015).…”