The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences
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J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci · Mar 2020
Effects of Age on Emotion Regulation, Emotional Empathy, and Prosocial Behavior.
The degree to which older adults experience emotional empathy and show subsequent prosocial behavior versus experience personal distress in response to another's distress remains unclear. ⋯ These findings contribute to clarification of mixed previous evidence regarding the experience of emotional empathy in young versus older adulthood. We discuss the importance of considering additional subcomponents of empathy such as emotion regulation, while also accounting for the relevance of the empathy induction to each age group.