IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/geronb/v77y2022i4pe57-e63..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Aging, Empathy, and Prosocial Behaviors During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Author

Listed:
  • Isu Cho
  • Ryan T Daley
  • Tony J Cunningham
  • Elizabeth A Kensinger
  • Angela Gutchess

Abstract

ObjectivesPrevious literature suggests age-related increases in prosociality. Does such an age–prosociality relationship occur during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, or might the pandemic—as a stressor that may differently influence young and older adults—create a boundary condition on the relationship? If so, can empathy, a well-known prosocial disposition, explain the age–prosociality relationship? This study investigated these questions and whether the target (distant others compared to close others) of prosocial behaviors differs by age.MethodsParticipants completed a series of surveys on dispositional empathy and prosocial behaviors for a study assessing their experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. There were 330 participants (aged 18–89) from the United States who completed all of the surveys included in the present analyses.ResultsAge was positively related to greater prosociality during the pandemic. Although empathy was positively associated with individuals’ prosociality, it did not account for the age–prosociality association. Interestingly, increasing age was associated with greater prosocial behaviors toward close others (i.e., family, friends).DiscussionResults are discussed in the context of socioemotional goals and substantiate that findings of age differences in prosocial behaviors occur during the period of limited resources and threat associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Suggested Citation

  • Isu Cho & Ryan T Daley & Tony J Cunningham & Elizabeth A Kensinger & Angela Gutchess, 2022. "Aging, Empathy, and Prosocial Behaviors During the COVID-19 Pandemic," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 77(4), pages 57-63.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:geronb:v:77:y:2022:i:4:p:e57-e63.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/geronb/gbab140
    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.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kristine J. Ajrouch & Alysia Y. Blandon & Toni C. Antonucci, 2005. "Social Networks Among Men and Women: The Effects of Age and Socioeconomic Status," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 60(6), pages 311-317.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Bilancini, Ennio & Boncinelli, Leonardo & Di Paolo, Roberto & Menicagli, Dario & Pizziol, Veronica & Ricciardi, Emiliano & Serti, Francesco, 2022. "Prosocial behavior in emergencies: Evidence from blood donors recruitment and retention during the COVID-19 pandemic," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 314(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kung, Claryn S. J. & Pudney, Stephen & Shields, Michael A., 2021. "Economic Gradients in Social Health in Britain," IZA Discussion Papers 14731, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Miika Mäki & Anna Erika Hägglund & Anna Rotkirch & Sangita Kulathinal & Mikko Myrskylä, 2022. "Stable marital histories predict happiness and health across educational groups," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2022-035, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    3. Amy Chan Hyung Kim & Jungsu Ryu & Chungsup Lee & Kyung Min Kim & Jinmoo Heo, 2021. "Sport Participation and Happiness Among Older Adults: A Mediating Role of Social Capital," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 1623-1641, April.
    4. Jan-Philip Steinmann & Hannes Kröger & Jörg Hartmann & Theresa M. Entringer, 2024. "Did Religious Well-Being Benefits Converge or Diverge During the Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Germany?," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 25(7), pages 1-35, October.
    5. Ignatius Musambai, 2023. "Relationship between Socio-Demographic Characteristics and Satisfaction in Interpersonal Relationships among Consecrated Religious in Catholic Higher Education Institutions in Lang’ ata Sub-County, ," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 7(10), pages 1763-1772, October.
    6. Carly Roman & Christopher R. Beam & Elizabeth Zelinski, 2022. "Psychosocial Outcomes of Age Integration Status: Do Age-Integrated Social Networks Benefit Older Adults?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(19), pages 1-15, September.
    7. Griff Tester & Eric R. Wright, 2017. "Older Gay Men and Their Support Convoys," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 72(3), pages 488-497.
    8. Beáta Dávid & Boglárka Herke & Éva Huszti & Gergely Tóth & Emese Túry-Angyal & Fruzsina Albert, 2023. "Reshaping Social Capital During the Pandemic Crisis: Age Group Differences in Face‐to‐Face Contact Network Structures," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 11(1), pages 295-309.
    9. Marcela Petrová Kafková, 2023. "Sources of Loneliness for Older Adults in the Czech Republic and Strategies for Coping With Loneliness," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 11(1), pages 225-233.
    10. Ella Schwartz & Howard Litwin, 2018. "Social network changes among older Europeans: the role of gender," European Journal of Ageing, Springer, vol. 15(4), pages 359-367, December.
    11. Vanessa Burholt & Bethan Winter & Marja Aartsen & Costas Constantinou & Lena Dahlberg & Villar Feliciano & Jenny Jong Gierveld & Sofie Regenmortel & Charles Waldegrave, 2020. "A critical review and development of a conceptual model of exclusion from social relations for older people," European Journal of Ageing, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 3-19, March.
    12. Ang, Shannon, 2018. "Social participation and health over the adult life course: Does the association strengthen with age?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 206(C), pages 51-59.
    13. Rock, Amelia & Barrington, Clare & Abdoulayi, Sara & Tsoka, Maxton & Mvula, Peter & Handa, Sudhanshu, 2016. "Social networks, social participation, and health among youth living in extreme poverty in rural Malawi," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 55-62.
    14. Baek, Jiwon & Kim, Go-Un & Song, Kijun & Kim, Heejung, 2023. "Decreasing patterns of depression in living alone across middle-aged and older men and women using a longitudinal mixed-effects model," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 317(C).
    15. Thomas Hansen & Marcela Petrová Kafková & Ruth Katz & Ariela Lowenstein & Sigal Naim & George Pavlidis & Feliciano Villar & Kieran Walsh & Marja Aartsen, 2021. "Exclusion from Social Relations in Later Life: Micro- and Macro-Level Patterns and Correlations in a European Perspective," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(23), pages 1-16, November.
    16. Jin You & Helene Fung & Peter Vitaliano, 2020. "The pattern of social support seeking and its socio-demographic variations among older adults in China," European Journal of Ageing, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 341-348, September.
    17. Natalia Arias & María Dolores Calvo & José Alberto Benítez-Andrades & María José Álvarez & Beatriz Alonso-Cortés & Carmen Benavides, 2018. "Socioeconomic Status in Adolescents: A Study of Its Relationship with Overweight and Obesity and Influence on Social Network Configuration," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-17, September.
    18. Delbosc, Alexa & Mokhtarian, Patricia, 2018. "Face to Facebook: The relationship between social media and social travel," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 20-27.
    19. Kung, Claryn S.J. & Pudney, Stephen E. & Shields, Michael A., 2022. "Economic gradients in loneliness, social isolation and social support: Evidence from the UK Biobank," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 306(C).
    20. Haosen Sun & Markus H Schafer & Jessica Kelley, 2023. "Isolation or Replenishment? The Case of Partner Network Exclusivity and Partner Loss in Later Life," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 78(4), pages 705-717.

    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:77:y:2022:i:4:p:e57-e63.. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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.