Underpinning prosociality: Age related performance in theory of mind, empathic understanding, and moral reasoning

Journal article


Spenser, Karin, Bull, Ray, Betts, Lucy and Winder, Belinda 2020. Underpinning prosociality: Age related performance in theory of mind, empathic understanding, and moral reasoning. Cognitive Development. 56, p. 100928. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2020.100928
AuthorsSpenser, Karin, Bull, Ray, Betts, Lucy and Winder, Belinda
Abstract

This paper investigates the idea that Theory of Mind (ToM), empathic understanding and moral reasoning are linked, and together contribute to prosocial behaviour. All three cognitive processes are explored in adolescents (aged 14–17 years), young-adults (aged 18–24 years) and middle-adults (aged 25–55). A statistically significant age-related difference was found on all measures between the adolescent group and the middle-adult group. Except for verbal ToM, all measures detected a statistically significant age-related difference between the adolescent group and the young adult group. However, except for verbal and visual ToM, no statistically significant age-related difference was found between the young-adult and middle-adult groups. A small to medium positive association was found between each of the five measures. These findings suggest that beyond adolescence ToM, empathic understanding, and moral reasoning might be improved which could be useful to researchers and practitioners interested in the later enhancement of prosociality in older individuals.

KeywordsProsociality; ToM; Empathy; Moral Reasoning
Year2020
JournalCognitive Development
Journal citation56, p. 100928
PublisherElsevier BV
ISSN0885-2014
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2020.100928
Web address (URL)http://hdl.handle.net/10545/625209
https://www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/
hdl:10545/625209
Publication dates06 Sep 2020
Publication process dates
Deposited25 Sep 2020, 14:50
Accepted16 Jul 2020
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© 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

ContributorsUniversity of Derby and Nottingham Trent University
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