Cross-Sectional Trajectories of Social Cognition in Later Life: Exploring Emotion Perception, Theory of Mind, and Emotional Empathy

Objective: The social cognitive abilities of emotion perception, cognitive theory of mind (ToM), affective ToM, and emotional empathy change across adulthood. Few existing studies have examined the performance of a single social cognitive domain in later life, with no known studies having examined all four abilities together. Although it is well understood how non-social cognitive performance changes with age, and this has helped inform diagnostic methods for age-related disorders, relatively little is known about typical age-related social cognitive performance in later life. The current study aimed to investigate the association between age and social cognitive performance within a sample of healthy midlife to older adults. Method: This cross-sectional study examined emotion perception using the Mini-SEA Facial Emotion Recognition Test, cognitive and affective ToM using The Shortened Awareness of Social Inference Test-Short Form, and emotional empathy using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index in 236 healthy adults aged 43-80 years (M = 60.30, SD = 6.88, 76% female). Results: Multiple linear regression analyses revealed that age only had a significant, medium, negative association with cognitive (B = −.08, p <.001) and affective (B = −.05, p <.001) ToM and was not significantly associated with emotion perception or emotional empathy. Conclusions: These findings enhance our understanding of normal social cognitive aging in later life, which can inform decisions around adding social cognitive measures into existing neuropsychological diagnostic tools for psychiatric, neurological, and developmental disorders.