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Cognitive empathy across the lifespan

AIM: To describe the development of cognitive empathy across the lifespan from a very large cohort using a standardized measure of cognitive empathy ability. METHOD: Participants (n=4545, age bands <5y to >75y, 60% female) were a convenience sample recruited voluntarily from visitors to the Gl...

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Autores principales: Dorris, Liam, Young, David, Barlow, Jill, Byrne, Karl, Hoyle, Robin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9790591/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35594529
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/dmcn.15263
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author Dorris, Liam
Young, David
Barlow, Jill
Byrne, Karl
Hoyle, Robin
author_facet Dorris, Liam
Young, David
Barlow, Jill
Byrne, Karl
Hoyle, Robin
author_sort Dorris, Liam
collection PubMed
description AIM: To describe the development of cognitive empathy across the lifespan from a very large cohort using a standardized measure of cognitive empathy ability. METHOD: Participants (n=4545, age bands <5y to >75y, 60% female) were a convenience sample recruited voluntarily from visitors to the Glasgow Science Centre in the UK, who completed the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test. RESULTS: When compared to preceding age groups, we found significant developmental gains in empathy ability in children aged 6 to 7 years (p=0.048, d=0.45) and again at 10 to 12 years (p=0.042, d=0.23), followed by a slight reduction in ability during adolescence (p=0.087, d=–0.18), and functional maturity in those aged 19 to 25 years (p=0.001, d=0.76). Cognitive empathy abilities remained relatively stable across adulthood but gradually declined in people over 65 years, with notable decline in males over 75 years (p=0.001, d=–0.98). Females performed better than males at all ages. INTERPRETATION: Understanding developmental issues in cognitive empathy could influence approaches to moral and social education for children, and health and social care support for older people. Standardized cognitive empathy tests could also provide novel approaches in the early detection of developmental vulnerabilities in a range of neurological conditions, and within neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders in which cognitive empathy is known to be impaired. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: Cognitive empathy is a late‐developing ability and changes across the lifespan. Cognitive empathy increases during childhood but with potentially altered abilities during adolescence. Cognitive empathy matures during early adulthood and gradually declines in older age. There is a female advantage in cognitive empathy abilities.
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spelling pubmed-97905912022-12-28 Cognitive empathy across the lifespan Dorris, Liam Young, David Barlow, Jill Byrne, Karl Hoyle, Robin Dev Med Child Neurol Original Articles AIM: To describe the development of cognitive empathy across the lifespan from a very large cohort using a standardized measure of cognitive empathy ability. METHOD: Participants (n=4545, age bands <5y to >75y, 60% female) were a convenience sample recruited voluntarily from visitors to the Glasgow Science Centre in the UK, who completed the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test. RESULTS: When compared to preceding age groups, we found significant developmental gains in empathy ability in children aged 6 to 7 years (p=0.048, d=0.45) and again at 10 to 12 years (p=0.042, d=0.23), followed by a slight reduction in ability during adolescence (p=0.087, d=–0.18), and functional maturity in those aged 19 to 25 years (p=0.001, d=0.76). Cognitive empathy abilities remained relatively stable across adulthood but gradually declined in people over 65 years, with notable decline in males over 75 years (p=0.001, d=–0.98). Females performed better than males at all ages. INTERPRETATION: Understanding developmental issues in cognitive empathy could influence approaches to moral and social education for children, and health and social care support for older people. Standardized cognitive empathy tests could also provide novel approaches in the early detection of developmental vulnerabilities in a range of neurological conditions, and within neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders in which cognitive empathy is known to be impaired. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: Cognitive empathy is a late‐developing ability and changes across the lifespan. Cognitive empathy increases during childhood but with potentially altered abilities during adolescence. Cognitive empathy matures during early adulthood and gradually declines in older age. There is a female advantage in cognitive empathy abilities. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2022-05-20 2022-12 /pmc/articles/PMC9790591/ /pubmed/35594529 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/dmcn.15263 Text en © 2022 The Authors. Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Mac Keith Press. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Articles
Dorris, Liam
Young, David
Barlow, Jill
Byrne, Karl
Hoyle, Robin
Cognitive empathy across the lifespan
title Cognitive empathy across the lifespan
title_full Cognitive empathy across the lifespan
title_fullStr Cognitive empathy across the lifespan
title_full_unstemmed Cognitive empathy across the lifespan
title_short Cognitive empathy across the lifespan
title_sort cognitive empathy across the lifespan
topic Original Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9790591/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35594529
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/dmcn.15263
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