ABSTRACT

In general, cognitive empathy was known to decline slowly as people are getting older and older, results of previous studies on emotional empathy have been inconsistent. Older adults with fronto-temporal dementia showed impairment of both emotional and cognitive empathy. Also trait empathy in older adults might not be different from that in younger adults, but the older adults show clear different performance in state empathy from the younger adults. Previous findings are discussed in terms of trait versus state empathy distinction, and practical implications of age-related changes in empathy are discussed in this article.