Effects of Age on Emotion Regulation, Emotional Empathy, and Prosocial Behavior

Bailey, Phoebe E.; Brady, Brooke; Ebner, Natalie C.; Ruffman, Ted

doi:10.1093/geronb/gby084

Cited by 50 publications

(71 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…), and higher magnitude Happy expressions also garnered higher overall ratings. This result is corroborated by previous studies on emotional empathy, which have shown that vivid emotional expressions elicits emotional reactivity in observers (Bailey et al, 2018).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

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Adult age differences in evoked emotional responses to dynamic facial expressions

Abiodun¹,

McAllister²,

Samanez-Larkin³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Facial expressions are powerful communicative social signals that motivate feelings and action in the observer. However, research on incentive motivation has overwhelmingly focused on money and points and the limited research on social incentives has been mostly focused on responses in young adulthood. Previous research on the age-related positivity effect and adult age differences in social motivation suggest that older adults might experience higher levels of positive arousal to socioemotional stimuli than younger adults. Affect ratings following dynamic emotional expressions (anger, happiness, sadness) varying in magnitude of expression showed that higher magnitude expressions elicited higher arousal and valence ratings. Older adults did not differ significantly in levels of arousal when compared to younger adults, however their ratings of emotional valence were significantly higher as the magnitude of expressions increased. The findings provide novel evidence that socioemotional incentives may be relatively more reinforcing as adults age. More generally, these dynamic socioemotional stimuli that vary in magnitude are ideal for future studies of more naturalistic affect elicitation, studies of social incentive processing, and use in incentive-driven choice tasks.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…Numerous studies have examined differences in social information processing in older adults (Bailey et al, 2018;Roalf et al, 2011). These studies demonstrate age differences in the evaluation of positive vs. negative.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adult age differences in evoked emotional responses to dynamic facial expressions

Abiodun¹,

McAllister²,

Samanez-Larkin³

et al. 2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Overall, most studies have not found lower trait emotional empathy in older adults than younger adults, and the majority of studies have found no age-related differences. Across two studies, Bailey and colleagues found no age-related differences in trait emotional empathy, which included two samples of participants from Australia (9, 29). In the first study by Bailey and colleagues (35), trait emotional empathy was measured by the affective empathy subscale of the Empathy Quotient and assessed age-related differences between younger ( N = 80; 19–25 years; 29% male) and older adults ( N = 49; 65–87 years; 33% male).…”

Section: Aging and Empathy: Psychological Mechanismsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Impact of Aging on Empathy: Review of Psychological and Neural Mechanisms

Beadle

Vega

2019

Front. Psychiatry

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Empathy in aging is a key capacity because it affects the quality of older adults’ relationships and reduced levels are associated with greater loneliness. Many older adults also find themselves in the role of a caregiver to a loved one, and thus empathy is critical for the success of the caregiver–patient relationship. Furthermore, older adults are motivated to make strong emotional connections with others, as highlighted in the socioemotional selectivity theory. Consequently, reductions in empathy could negatively impact their goals. However, there is growing evidence that older adults experience at least some changes in empathy, depending on the domain. Specifically, the state of the research is that older adults have lower cognitive empathy (i.e., the ability to understand others’ thoughts and feelings) than younger adults, but similar and in some cases even higher levels of emotional empathy (i.e., the ability to feel emotions that are similar to others’ or feel compassion for them). A small number of studies have examined the neural mechanisms for age-related differences in empathy and have found reduced activity in a key brain area associated with cognitive empathy. However, more research is needed to further characterize how brain changes impact empathy with age, especially in the emotional domain of empathy. In this review, we discuss the current state of the research on age-related differences in the psychological and neural bases of empathy, with a specific comparison of the cognitive versus emotional components. Finally, we highlight new directions for research in this area and examine the implications of age-related differences in empathy for older adults.

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“…Durante estas etapas, las habilidades para el reconocimiento de las emociones aún se encuentran madurando y se asocian a las habilidades para la regulación de las emociones (Thompson, 2011;Zimmer-mann, 1999;Zimmermann y Iwanski, 2014). Más aún, algunos estudios evidenciaron que, en comparación con los adultos más grandes, los adultos emergentes presentaron menores recursos cognitivos para la regulación de las emociones (Yeung, Wong y Lok, 2011) y realizaron menores esfuerzos para ayudar a otra persona a resolver una tarea (Bailey et al, 2018).…”

Section: Discussionunclassified

Effect of emotions on risk taking, dishonesty and social cognition in college emerging adults

Michelini

Godoy

2019

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Resumen La experiencia emocional puede ejercer distintos efectos en el desempeño de adultos emergentes universitarios en toma de decisiones en contextos de riesgo, morales y empáticos. El objetivo fue comparar el rendimiento en toma de riesgo, deshonestidad y teoría de la mente en adultos emergentes universitarios bajo estados emocionales diferentes dimensional y discretamente. Una muestra de 153 estudiantes de 18 a 26 años ejecutó el Test de la Mirada, y las pruebas Dots Task y Balloon Analogue Risk Task luego de ser expuestos a fragmentos de películas inductores de emociones. La toma de decisiones riesgosas y morales fue peor bajo estados emocionales de tristeza y miedo, respectivamente. Además, mayores dificultades en la regulación emocional se asociaron a un peor rendimiento en teoría de la mente. Estos resultados implican un aporte inicial al conocimiento de interacciones emoción-cognición, aspectos relevantes para la aplicación de políticas de intervención en la comunidad estudiantil universitaria.

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Effects of Age on Emotion Regulation, Emotional Empathy, and Prosocial Behavior

Cited by 50 publications

References 30 publications

Adult age differences in evoked emotional responses to dynamic facial expressions

Adult age differences in evoked emotional responses to dynamic facial expressions

Impact of Aging on Empathy: Review of Psychological and Neural Mechanisms

Effect of emotions on risk taking, dishonesty and social cognition in college emerging adults

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