ArticleThe journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences2022
Aging, Empathy, and Prosocial Behaviors During the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Article in The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Are Older Adults More Prosocial Than Younger Adults? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.The Gerontologist · 2024Pooled it
- Adolescent wellbeing after COVID-related school-closings.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- The Role of Square Dancing in Psychological Capital: Evidence from a Large Cross-Sequential Study.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- When Omicron knocks at door: An inverted U-shape relationship between virus proximity and prosocial behavior.Fundamental research · 2025Article
- Evolving Altruistic Attitudes towards Vaccination Post COVID-19 Pandemic: A Comparative Analysis across Age Groups.Vaccines · 2024Article
- Article
- The Concept of Prosociality in Later Life and Its Dimensions: A Scoping Review.Iranian journal of psychiatry · 2024Article
- Pet attachment and prosocial attitude toward humans: the mediating role of empathy to animals.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Interpersonal Competition in Elderly Couples: A Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Hyperscanning Study.Brain sciences · 2023Article
- Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the existence of social solidarity: evidence from rural-urban communities in Lombok Island, Indonesia.Frontiers in sociology · 2023Article
- Empathy, memory, and aging during the COVID-19 pandemic.Current research in ecological and social psychology · 2023Article
- Prosocial behavior in emergencies: Evidence from blood donors recruitment and retention during the COVID-19 pandemic.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2022Article
- What Factors Are Associated With Psychological Vulnerability and Resiliency Among Older Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic?The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2022Article
- Emotional Intelligence as a Predictor of Prosocial Behaviors in Spanish and Colombian Older Adults Based on Path Models.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Psychosocial Effects of COVID-19 in the Ecuadorian and Spanish Populations: A Cross-Cultural Study.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- Moral decision-making during the COVID-19 pandemic: Associations with age, negative affect, and negative memory.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectivesPrevious literature suggests age-related increases in prosociality. Does such an age-prosociality relationship occur during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, or might the pandemic-as a stressor that may differently influence young and older adults-create a boundary condition on the relationship? If so, can empathy, a well-known prosocial disposition, explain the age-prosociality relationship? This study investigated these questions and whether the target (distant others compared to close others) of prosocial behaviors differs by age.
methodsParticipants completed a series of surveys on dispositional empathy and prosocial behaviors for a study assessing their experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. There were 330 participants (aged 18-89) from the United States who completed all of the surveys included in the present analyses.
resultsAge was positively related to greater prosociality during the pandemic. Although empathy was positively associated with individuals' prosociality, it did not account for the age-prosociality association. Interestingly, increasing age was associated with greater prosocial behaviors toward close others (i.e., family, friends). DISCUSSION: Results are discussed in the context of socioemotional goals and substantiate that findings of age differences in prosocial behaviors occur during the period of limited resources and threat associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.