IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/geronb/v75y2020i8p1648-1657..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Empathy and Close Social Ties in Late Life

Author

Listed:
  • Meng Huo
  • Jamie L Fuentecilla
  • Kira S Birditt
  • Karen L Fingerman
  • Derek Isaacowitz

Abstract

ObjectivesOlder adults with stronger social ties often lead longer, healthier, and happier lives, but these ties may differ based on older adults’ ability to share and understand others’ emotions (i.e., empathy). This study asked how empathy was associated with the way that older adults construct and engage in their social worlds.MethodWe drew on the Daily Experiences and Well-being Study to examine how older adults’ empathy was associated with the structure (e.g., network size and contact), function (e.g., support), and quality (e.g., affection and conflict) of their close social ties. Participants (N = 333) self-rated empathy and listed their social partners using three concentric convoy circles.ResultsEmpathy was not associated with older adults’ social network structure, but more empathic older adults exchanged support with more social partners and reported greater affection for their social partners. We did not observe a significant link between older adults’ empathy and conflict with social partners.DiscussionExamining empathy advances our understanding of individual differences in older adults’ close social ties. This study suggests that empathy may play a promising role with regard to promoting older adults’ social experiences and strengthening their close ties.

Suggested Citation

  • Meng Huo & Jamie L Fuentecilla & Kira S Birditt & Karen L Fingerman & Derek Isaacowitz, 2020. "Empathy and Close Social Ties in Late Life," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 75(8), pages 1648-1657.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:geronb:v:75:y:2020:i:8:p:1648-1657.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/geronb/gbz044
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Howard Litwin & Michal Levinsky, 2022. "Does personality shape the personal social networks of older Europeans?," European Journal of Ageing, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 717-727, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:geronb:v:75:y:2020:i:8:p:1648-1657.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/psychsocgerontology .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.