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

Spenser, K, Bull, R, Betts, L ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6147-8089 and Winder, B ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9118-679X, 2020. Underpinning prosociality: age related performance in theory of mind, empathic understanding, and moral reasoning. Cognitive Development, 56: 100928. ISSN 0885-2014

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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.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Cognitive Development
Creators:	Spenser, K., Bull, R., Betts, L. and Winder, B.
Publisher:	Elsevier
Date:	October 2020
Volume:	56
ISSN:	0885-2014
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1016/j.cogdev.2020.100928 DOI S0885201420300824 Publisher Item Identifier 1364476 Other
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Jonathan Gallacher
Date Added:	10 Sep 2020 14:38
Last Modified:	06 Sep 2022 03:00
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/40672

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