The Effects of Culture and View of Aging on Perspective Taking in Young Adults

Young adults’ ability to recall a story about others, especially of an older adult, may be influenced by culture-based views on aging. In the present study, we extended a perspective-taking paradigm designed by Sullivan et al. (2010) by adding a cultural component to the methodology and testing participants’ perspective-taking performance. Participants from the United States and Hong Kong heard two stories about a 25-year-old and a 75-year-old character from either location. Overall, we found that both groups recalled more negative than positive events. However, Hong Kong partici pants, who showed a more negative view of aging than US participants, used more negative words to describe the older adult than the young adult story. These findings suggest an intricate relation ship between culture-based views of aging and the language used in the recall of emotional events.