Empathy responses to others in pain peak in young adulthood according to a new study led by Kent\u2019s School of Psychology.<\/p>\n
Psychologists have discovered that young adults are especially sensitive to social pain, such as situations of embarrassment, grief and sadness, and empathise more strongly with others experiencing social pain than adolescents or older adults do.<\/p>\n
Empathy is a critical component of social interaction that enables individuals to understand and share the emotions of others.<\/p>\n
The research, published in the journal,\u00a0Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience,\u00a0<\/em>explored how empathy responses differ between adolescents (10-19 years old), young adults (20-40 years old) and older adults (60+ years old), by recording brain activity while participants viewed photographs of people in physically or socially painful situations. Findings showed that brain responses to painful situations increased from adolescence to young and older adulthood. This demonstrates that empathy responses develop throughout the lifespan as social experience and exposure to different social and pain-related situations increases.<\/p>\n While the research showed that people\u2019s brain empathy responses get stronger as they age, the increased brain activity in older adults comes alongside reduced ratings of pain for others. Professor Heather Ferguson<\/strong><\/a>, lead researcher on the paper and Professor of Psychology at Kent, suggests that this is because older adults are less good at expressing empathy for others compared to young adults.<\/p>\n Professor Ferguson said: \u2018This study provides valuable insights into the complex nature of empathic responses to others in pain. Empathy responses to others in pain peak in young adulthood, as seen in their behavioural ratings of pain intensity felt by others. However, the brain becomes increasingly reactive to seeing others in pain as we age, which suggests that older adults experienced empathy at the time of viewing the photographs of pain \u2013 but were less accurate later at rating the intensity of this pain.\u2019<\/p>\n The research paper \u2018Neural empathy mechanisms are shared for physical and social pain, and increase from adolescence to older adulthood\u2019 is published in the journal,\u00a0Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.<\/em>\u00a0doi:\u00a010.1093\/scan\/nsae080<\/a><\/p>\n This research was funded by the European Research Council.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"