There are many health concerns associated with getting older. We know from years of medical research that there are many areas of the body that go into decline with age, but recent research has shown that one area may actually get better with age: your sense of empathy.
A new study has been carried out on over 75,000 adults, looking at the empathy level of late middle-aged men and women. Results showed that adults who are late middle-aged are far more likely to be empathetic than younger people. It also showed that they are more empathetic than older people, suggesting a ‘peak’ in empathy at around this age. Women were more empathetic than men overall, both of the same age and younger or older than them.
Empathy is when someone has an emotional reaction to the wellbeing of others, and tries to understand a situation from someone else’s point of view. The research, carried out at the University of Michigan and at North Carolina State University, looked at large amounts of data expressing empathy in adults.
Researchers believe that this may be linked to brain function, and that as people get older they have improved cognitive wellness (up to a point) and are able to understand situations fully. Then, as the brain declines, this ability is lost.
Further research is needed to test whether this empathy is a product of a generation that grew up in a time of great social change, or is a stage of life that all adults will reach, regardless of the experiences that have shaped their lives.
There is also scope for testing how this empathy could be cultivated, perhaps using electronic media, in order to create a more empathetic generation in years to come.
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