Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 Jan 2;15(1):269.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-82550-0.

Empathy is associated with older adults' social behaviors and verbal emotional expressions throughout the day

Meng Huo  1 , Kate A Leger  2 , Kira S Birditt  3 , Karen L Fingerman  4
Affiliations

Empathy is associated with older adults' social behaviors and verbal emotional expressions throughout the day

Meng Huo et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Empathy plays a crucial role in promoting older adults' interpersonal experiences, but it remains unclear how these benefits of empathy occur. To address this gap, we examined associations between empathy and how older adults behave and express emotions during their daily interpersonal encounters. Participants included 268 adults aged 65+ (46% men, n = 124) from the Daily Experiences and Well-being Study. They reported background characteristics and empathy in baseline interviews and indicated interpersonal encounters every 3 hours across 5 to 6 days. Participants wore electronically activated recorders (EAR), an app that captured 30-second snippets of ambient sounds every 7 minutes. Verbatim transcripts were coded for positive and negative social behaviors (e.g., praise, complain) and text was analyzed via Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software for verbal expressions of positive and negative emotions (e.g., happy, hope, hate, hurt). Multilevel models showed that greater empathy was associated with greater variety in positive social behaviors throughout the day. More empathic older adults expressed more positive emotions while engaging in positive behaviors and less negative emotions when engaging in negative behaviors. This study innovatively draws on naturalistic data to delineate how more empathic older adults may have more positive and less negative social experiences than their less empathic counterparts. Findings may inform interventions that can incorporate empathy training to target those at higher risk of poor interpersonal experiences and outcomes (e.g., social isolation).

Keywords: EAR; EMA; Empathic; Late life; Linguistics.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Interaction plots of empathy × (a) positive social behaviors and (b) negative social behaviors on verbal emotional expressions.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Interaction plot of empathic concern × positive social behaviors on verbal expression of negative emotions.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T. B. & Layton, J. B. Social relationships and mortality risk: A meta-analytic review. PLoS Med.7, e1000316 (2010). - PMC - PubMed
    1. Yang, Y. C. et al. Social relationships and physiological determinants of longevity across the human life span. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U S A. 113, 578–583 (2016). - PMC - PubMed
    1. Santini, Z. I., Koyanagi, A., Tyrovolas, S., Mason, C. & Haro, J. M. The association between social relationships and depression: A systematic review. J. Affect. Disord. 175, 53–65 (2015). - PubMed
    1. Davis, M. H. in The Oxford Handbook of Prosocial Behavior (eds. Schroeder, D. A. & Graziano, W. G.) Ch. 14 (Oxford University Press, 2015).
    1. Decety, J. & Svetlova, M. Putting together phylogenetic and ontogenetic perspectives on empathy. Dev. Cogn. Neurosci.2, 1–24 (2012). - PMC - PubMed

Publication types