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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Empathy and social functioning in late adulthood | | Author(s) | Phoebe E Bailey, Julie D Henry, William Von Hippel |
| Journal title | Aging & Mental Health, vol 12, no 4, July 2008 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis, July 2008 |
| Pages | pp 499-503 |
| Source | http://www.tandfonline.com |
| Keywords | Attitude ; Personal relationships ; Social interaction ; Adults ; Age groups [elderly] ; Comparison ; Australia. |
| Annotation | Both cognitive and affective empathy are regarded as essential prerequisites for successful social functioning, and recent studies have suggested that cognitive but not affective empathy may be adversely affected as a consequence of normal adult ageing. This decline in cognitive empathy is of concern as older people are particularly susceptible to the negative physical and mental health consequences of loneliness and social isolation. This Australian study compared 90 younger (ages 19-25) and 49 older (ages 65-87) adults on measures of cognitive empathy, affective empathy and social functioning. Whilst older people's self-reported and performance-based cognitive empathy was significantly reduced relative to younger adults, there were no age-related differences in affective empathy. Older people also reported involvement in significantly fewer social activities than younger adults, and cognitive empathy functioned as a partial mediator of this relationship. These findings are consistent with theoretical models that regard cognitive empathy as an essential prerequisite for good interpersonal functioning. However, the cross-sectional nature of the study leaves open the question of causality for future studies. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-081010211 A |
| Classmark | DP: DS: TMA: SD: BB: 48: 7YA |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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