Older adults’ empathy and daily support exchanges

Abstract

Older adults’ empathy may shape the frequency and types of support that they exchange with their social partners as well as the implications of these exchanges. This study drew on the Daily Experiences and Well-being Study, which included adults aged 65 and over and tracked them across 5–6 days using mobile phone surveys. Participants (n = 293) rated their empathy and reported their daily support exchanges (e.g., emotional support, instrumental support, advice) as well as mood. Findings showed that more empathic older adults provided each type of support more often. They also received more emotional support than less empathic older adults. Moreover, older adults’ empathy moderated the associations between providing support and their daily mood. More empathic older adults maintained their mood regardless of whether they provided support. By contrast, less empathic older adults reported reduced positive mood on days when they provided emotional support and increased positive mood when they provided instrumental support. Greater empathy is associated with more frequent support exchanges; however, more empathic older adults appear immune to such exchanges in terms of their mood. Interestingly, less empathic older adults may find providing emotional support draining but instrumental support rewarding, probably because they are less equipped to cope with others’ emotions.

Keywords

Daily diary empathy mood older adults support exchange

Older adults exchange support with family and friends, and these exchanges are central to their own well-being (Fingerman & Birditt, 2010; Huo, Graham, Kim, Birditt, & Fingerman, 2019; Kahana, Bhatta, Lovegreen, Kahana, & Midlarsky, 2013). Yet, some older adults engage in frequent support exchanges, whereas other older adults rarely provide or receive any support (Fiori, Smith, & Antonucci, 2007). We sought to explain these differences by examining empathy, the ability to share and understand others’ emotions (Decety & Svetlova, 2012). Prior research has documented the central role of empathy in helping behaviors (Batson, 2011); this ability may shape the frequency and types of support that older adults provide and receive. The literature on empathy, however, has predominantly studied children, adolescents, and young adults (Eisenberg, 2000; Eisenberg & Eggum, 2009; Hoffman, 2008). The few laboratory experiments including older adults focused on charitable donation or economic decision-making (Bailey, Henry, & von Hippel, 2008; Beadle, Sheehan, Dahlben, & Gutchess, 2015; Sze, Gyurak, Goodkind, & Levenson, 2012). It remains unclear how older adults’ empathy may influence the everyday support they exchange with close partners (e.g., family, friends) in real-world settings.

As people age, they tend to have narrower social networks and prefer spending time with close partners rather than with strangers (Charles & Carstensen, 2010). Moreover, older adults may provide and receive emotional support, instrumental support, and advice from their social partners on a daily basis (Fingerman, Kim, Tennant, Birditt, & Zarit, 2016; Huo et al., 2019; Thoits, 2011). Emotional support involves listening to someone’s concerns or expressing love and care when they are upset (Burleson, 2003). Instrumental support includes fixing something around the house, running an errand, or providing a ride. Advice refers to helping with a decision or offering suggestions regarding how to cope with a problematic situation (Feng & Feng, 2018). We did not include financial support because it typically occurs infrequently and may not be captured in a daily context (Johnson, 2013; Swartz, 2009).

We also examined whether older adults’ empathy influences the implications of their support exchanges. Older adults’ support exchanges are reliably associated with their daily mood (Fingerman et al., 2016; Huo et al., 2019). Yet, more empathic older adults may especially enjoy helping others and appreciate receiving support. Alternately, more empathic older adults may suffer more from their partners’ distress and experience poorer mood when involved in helping them. We examined these issues. Practically, this study aims to explore a potential role of empathy in developing future interventions that may benefit older adults’ support exchanges and well-being.

Older adults’ empathy and daily support exchanges

Empathy varies among individuals, which may be evident in the support that they provide and receive (Batson, 2011; Decety & Svetlova, 2012). Scholars have raised several theoretical perspectives to understand these individual differences. The perception-action model (Preston & De Waal, 2002) suggests a mechanism whereby more empathic individuals perceive others’ emotions more readily, experience similar emotions more automatically, and feel more motivated to take action in response than less empathic individuals. The Russian Doll Model (De Waal, 2008) builds on this perception-action mechanism and proposes this mechanism triggers more complex emotional and cognitive processes, such as feeling concern for others’ misfortunes (i.e., emotional empathy) and taking others’ perspectives (i.e., cognitive empathy). Emotional and cognitive empathy have been combined and measured as overall empathy (e.g., Grühn, Rebucal, Diehl, Lumley, & Labouvie-Vief, 2008; Manczak, DeLongis, & Chen, 2016).

Support provision

Empathy may be a central feature of older adults’ daily support provision. The empathy-altruism hypothesis suggests that high empathy often leads to altruistic behaviors (Batson, 2011): this empathy-altruism link may apply to emotional and instrumental support. Scholars have argued that empathy is a key requisite for emotional support (Morelli, Lee, Arnn, & Zaki, 2015; Reis, Clark, & Holmes, 2004), such that more empathic children and young adults are more likely to console others in distress than their less empathic counterparts (e.g., Einolf, 2008; Eisenberg, 2000; Stern & Cassidy, 2017). In addition, empathy may facilitate provision of instrumental support. Prior research has linked empathy with offering a ride and helping with chores or other in childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood (Eisenberg, 2000; Hoffman, 2008; Morelli, Rameson, & Lieberman, 2012; Verhofstadt, Buysse, Ickes, Davis, & Devoldre, 2008). These associations may hold true for older adults’ support provision to their close partners. We expected more empathic older adults would be more likely to provide emotional and instrumental support than less empathic older adults on a daily basis.

It is unclear, however, whether older adults’ empathy is also associated with advice giving. Although more empathic older adults typically feel more motivated to help their social partners (Batson, 2011), they may not necessarily choose to give advice. Advice can be undesired by the recipients, because it suggests these recipients’ lack of control or competence to deal with their own problems (Feng & Magen, 2016; Rafaeli & Gleason, 2009; Seidman, Shrout, & Bolger, 2006). Compared to less empathic older adults, more empathic older adults may be more sensitive to their social partners’ reluctance to receiving advice. We explored this issue, but did not specify a hypothesis regarding the advice older adults give to social partners.

Support receipt

Little attention has focused on how older adults’ empathy may influence the support that they receive. Equity/reciprocity theory posits that individuals seek to balance the support they receive with the support they provide (Gleason & Iida, 2015; Uehara, 1995). Because more empathic older adults may provide more emotional and instrumental support to their social partners, they may also receive such support more often than their less empathic counterparts. In addition, individuals tend to befriend and interact with similar others (i.e., homophily; McPherson, Smith-Lovin, & Cook, 2001). Thus, compared to less empathic older adults, more empathic older adults may have social partners who are more empathic and who offer emotional and instrumental support more often.

Furthermore, more empathic older adults may detect and report receiving more support regardless of the type of support. Research suggests that more empathic older adults show greater gratitude, possibly due to their stronger sensitivity and recognition of others’ kindness (Breen, Kashdan, Lenser, & Fincham, 2010). Such gratitude from more empathic older adults may also encourage their social partners to help more in general. Here, we expected that more empathic older adults would be more likely to receive emotional support, instrumental support, and advice than less empathic older adults on a daily basis.

Older adults’ empathy and implications for daily mood

Exchanging support with social partners has implications for older adults’ daily mood. Typically, providing support allows older adults to contribute to their social partners’ welfare, which may be emotionally rewarding (Gruenewald, Karlamangla, Greendale, Singer, & Seeman, 2007; Huo et al., 2019; Thomas, 2010). Receiving support, by contrast, harms older adults’ well-being given that it may violate their feelings of autonomy (Djundeva, Mills, Wittek, & Steverink, 2015; Thomas, 2010). Yet, these associations may vary by how older adults perceive and understand their social partners’ emotions during support exchanges (i.e., empathy).

Support provision

Older adults’ empathy may be associated with their mood on days when they provide support to social partners; moreover, this association may differ by the type of support they provide (e.g., emotional, instrumental, advice). Providing emotional support may especially require sharing the other party’s distress, which can be more intense among older adults scoring higher in empathy (Hodges & Biswas-Diener, 2007; Hoffman, 2008). Prior research has found that providing support is associated with more depressive symptoms in late life when older adults offer emotional support and view such helping behaviors as stressful (Bangerter, Kim, Zarit, Birditt, & Fingerman, 2015). As such, we expected providing emotional support to be associated with worse mood on a daily basis, yet this link might be stronger among more empathic older adults than less empathic older adults.

When providing instrumental support and advice, however, more empathic older adults may benefit more than less empathic older adults. Research suggests that in close relationships, more empathic individuals are more likely to detect their partners’ needs and provide better quality instrumental support and advice (Ickes & Hodges, 2013; Verhofstadt et al., 2008, 2016). It is possible that more empathic older adults are better able to improve their social partners’ situations, which may boost these older adults’ feelings of usefulness and render these helping behaviors more rewarding (Gruenewald et al., 2007; Thomas, 2010). A recent review suggests that individuals find helping behaviors more beneficial when they believe these behaviors are effective (Inagaki & Orehek, 2017). Thus, we expected that compared to less empathic older adults, more empathic older adults would manifest greater improvements in their mood when providing instrumental support or advice to their social partners.

Support receipt

Older adults’ empathy may also influence the associations between receiving support and their own daily mood, regardless of the type of support. The literature has commonly suggested that older adults report worse daily mood when receiving support (Gleason, Iida, Shrout, & Bolger, 2008; Thomas, 2010), yet several exceptions exist. The negative consequences of receiving support are dampened when the support that older adults receive can be understood. For example, older adults’ disabilities may increase their acceptance of receiving support, such that disabled older adults report fewer depressive symptoms and less negative mood than nondisabled older adults when receiving support (Djundeva et al., 2015; Huo, Graham, Kim, Zarit, & Fingerman, 2018). Likewise, compared to less empathic older adults, more empathic older adults may detect their social partners’ altruistic intentions more accurately and more easily accept the support they receive from these partners (Breen et al., 2010; Ickes & Hodges, 2013). In addition, scholars have used lack of reciprocity to explain the negative consequences of receiving support (Gleason, Iida, Bolger, & Shrout, 2003; Gleason et al., 2008). More empathic older adults often provide more support to their social partners; thus, they may view their support exchanges as more balanced. We asked whether more empathic older adults regulated their mood better when they received support than less empathic older adults. For example, less empathic older adults may experience significantly worse mood on days when receiving support compared to days when they do not. By contrast, more empathic older adults may be able to maintain their mood or even experience better mood when receiving support.

Other factors associated with older adults’ support exchanges and mood

This study controlled for other factors that are associated with older adults’ empathy, support exchanges, and mood to avoid spurious associations. We considered older adults’ age, health, gender, education, minority, marital status, agreeableness, neuroticism, and number of social partners with problems. As people age, they may incur more health problems (Chatterji, Byles, Cutler, Seeman, & Verdes, 2015). Women are more empathic and more involved in social ties (Bloise & Johnson, 2007; O’Brien, Konrath, Gruhn, & Hagen, 2013). Better educated people are often more empathic and provide more support to others (Conger, Conger, & Martin, 2010; Fingerman et al., 2015; Grühn et al., 2008). African Americans may engage in more contact with social partners and show greater reactivity toward daily events than European Americans (Ajrouch, Antonucci, & Janevic, 2001; Cichy, Stawski, & Almeida, 2012). Married older adults provide more support to their adult children, whereas unmarried or divorced older adults require more support (Isherwood, Luszcz, & King, 2016). Highly agreeable individuals are more skilled at empathizing with others’ emotions and typically exhibit more prosocial behaviors (Graziano, Habashi, Sheese, & Tobin, 2007; Haas, Ishak, Denison, Anderson, & Filkowski, 2015). Research has negatively linked neuroticism to empathy (Mooradian, Davis, & Matzler, 2011). Further, highly neurotic people tend to experience more depressive symptoms and report worse mood (Robinson, Ode, Moeller, & Goetz, 2007; Roelofs, Huibers, Peeters, Amtz, & van Os, 2008). Last, we controlled for the number of social partners with problems. It is well-established that older adults offer more help to their partners suffering problems (Gilligan, Suitor, Rurka, Con, & Pillemer, 2017; Huo et al., 2019).

Methods

Sample and procedures

We drew on the Daily Experiences and Well-being Study (DEWS) conducted in 2016–2017. The DEWS included 333 older adults who resided in the greater Austin, Texas, including urban, suburban, and rural areas. Study criteria limited the sample to adults aged 65 and older (65–92, M _age = 74.15, SD = 6.57), who resided in the community and were not employed full time. We used a stratified sampling procedure to obtain a diverse sample, where 45% of the participants were males and 33% were ethnic or racial minorities (e.g., African Americans, Hispanic/Latino). Although this sample was better educated than the general older population in Austin (U.S. Census Bureau, 2017), we included a full spectrum of socioeconomic backgrounds.

Participants completed a 2-hr in-person interview to rate their own characteristics such as age, gender, education, health, empathy, and personality. This interview also included the convoy assessment of social networks for participants to list their close partners in three concentric circles (Antonucci, 1986). Participants were then invited to complete a 5- to 6-day intensive data collection, where they completed tasks on a handheld Android device throughout the day, including reporting their support exchanges with social partners at the end of each day.

Among the 333 participants who completed the global interviews, 88% (n = 293) finished the end of day survey on at least one day (M _day = 4.07, SD = 1.22; total n = 1,151). Statistical analyses revealed that these 293 participants were younger (t = 2.68, p = .01) and less likely to identify as an ethnic or racial minority (χ ² = 4.50, p = .03) than the other 40 participants who were not part of the daily study. Participants received US$50 for completing the global interview and another US$100 for the daily surveys. Table 1 presents sample description.

Table 1.
Bivariate correlations among participant (n = 293) characteristics.

M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

1. Age 73.73 6.28 —

2. Health^a 3.57 1.03 −.04 —

3. Empathy^b 3.77 0.66 −.04 −.01 —

4. Agreeableness^c 3.46 0.49 −.04 .00 .34*** —

5. Neuroticism^d 2.43 0.69 −.12* −.24*** −.06 −.12* —

6. No. of social partners with problems^e 2.28 2.09 −.01 −.11 −.20* .18 .06 —

7. Days answering surveys^f 4.07 1.22 −.05 .11 .15 .10 −.04 .01 —

8. Daily negative mood^g 1.41 0.43 .01 −.26* .01 −.03 .37* .16 −.05 —

9. Daily positive mood^g 3.75 0.70 −.12* .12* .12* .25*** −.12* .02 .04 −.27*** —

10. No. of social partners in exchanges^h 2.82 2.11 −.12* .04 .18 .18 .08 .14* .27*** .07 .08 —

Proportions

11. Male .45 .04 .05 −.15* −.26* .00 −.21* −.02 −.03 −.06 −.25* —

12. College degree .57 −.01 .31* .02 −.13* −.06 .04 .05 −.06 −.10 .04 .19 —

13. Marital statusⁱ .60 −.20 .04 −.05 −.11 .11 −.13* −.04 −.06 .10 −.01 .39*** .14* —

14. Minority^j .31 −.15 −.34* .02 .05 .13* −.02 −.16 .02 .08 .00 .02 −.30* −.02 —

^aRated from 1 (poor), 2 (fair), 3 (good), 4 (very good) to 5 (excellent).

^bAveraged ratings of 5 items from 1 (not at all) to 5 (a great deal).

^cAveraged ratings of 5 agreeableness items (e.g., considerate) from 1 (not at all) to 5 (a great deal).

^dAveraged ratings of 4 neuroticism items (e.g., nervous) from 1 (not at all) to 5 (a great deal).

^eNumber of social partners who had any life problem (e.g., health concerns, emotional problems, housing issues, financial problems, etc.).

^fNumber of days participants had end of day surveys.

^gAveraged ratings of 3 positive items (e.g., calm, content) and 5 negative items (e.g., nervous, irritated) from 1 (not at all) to 5 (a great deal).

^hNumber of social partners participants reported to have support exchanges with.

ⁱRecoded as 1 (married/remarried) and 0 (not married).

^jRecoded as 1 (a racial or ethnic minority) and 0 (not a minority). p < .05; p < .01; p < .001.

Global interview measures

Empathy

We measured participants’ empathy using a scale modified from the interpersonal reactivity index (empathic concern and perspective taking subscales; Davis, 1983). The modified scale captured both emotional and cognitive components of empathy. Participants rated how well eight statements described them from 1 (not at all) to 5 (a great deal). An example emotional empathy item included “I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me.” An example cognitive empathy item was “I sometimes try to understand other people better by imagining how things look from their perspective.” Many participants reported difficulties understanding the reverse-scored items and were not able to rate the items. Thus, we excluded three reverse-scored items from the original scale and generated a 5-item scale. An example reverse-scored item was “Sometimes I do not feel sorry for other people when they are having problems.” We averaged ratings across the 5 items to assess empathy (α = .73).

Covariates

Participants reported their age, gender rated as 1 (male) and 0 (female), physical health rated from 1 (poor), 2 (fair), 3 (good), 4 (very good) to 5 (excellent; Idler & Kasl, 1995), and marital status recoded as 1 (married/remarried) and 0 (not married). Participants indicated education from 1 (no formal education), 2 (elementary school), 3 (some high school), 4 (high school), 5 (some college/vocation or trade school), 6 (college graduate), 7 (post college but no additional degree) to 8 (advanced degree). We dichotomized education to 1 (college degree and above) and 0 (below college degree; Montez, Hummer, & Hayward, 2012). Participants indicated their ethnic and racial identities, from which we generated a variable coded as minority status 1 (ethnic or racial minority) and 0 (non-Hispanic White). Participants rated how well 5 agreeableness items (e.g., helpful, softhearted, sympathetic; Mroczek & Almeida, 2004) and 4 neuroticism items (e.g., moody, nervous; Lachman & Weaver, 1997) described them on a scale from 1 (not at all) to 5 (a great deal). We averaged the ratings to measure agreeableness (α = .77) and neuroticism (α = .70). Participants also indicated whether each social partner had seven life problems (e.g., health concerns, emotional problems, financial issues; Huo et al., 2019) in the past year. We calculated the number of social partners who had any problem. Table 1 presents bivariate correlations among these demographic variables.

Daily surveys measures

Support exchanges

At the end of each day, participants indicated whether they provided and received emotional support, instrumental support, and advice from any social partner on 1 (yes) and 0 (no; Fingerman et al., 2016; Huo et al., 2019, 2018).

Mood

As part of an ecological momentary assessment protocol, participants rated their positive and negative mood every 3 hours throughout each day. Participants indicated the extent to which they experienced three positive emotions (i.e., calm, loved, content) and five negative emotions (i.e., nervous, irritated, bored, lonely, sad; Huo et al., 2019, 2018; Piazza, Charles, Stawski, & Almeida, 2013) from 1 (not at all) to 5 (a great deal). We averaged participants’ ratings to measure their positive mood (α = .72) and negative mood (α = .75) every 3 hours. We calculated each participant’s maximum mood across 3-hour reports within each day to assess peak daily positive and negative mood.

Analytic strategy

We first examined the associations between participants’ empathy and their daily support exchanges with social partners. Because each participant reported each day on their support provision and receipt from any social partner, we initially estimated two-level models to incorporate the day level (level 1) and the participant level (level 2). The predictor was participants’ empathy. The outcomes included whether participants provided and received (a) emotional support, (b) instrumental support, and (c) advice each day on 1 (yes) and 0 (no). Each type of support provision and receipt was analyzed in separate models; there were 2 (provide, receive) × 3 (emotional, instrumental, advice) = 6 models. Because the outcomes were binary variables, we estimated logistic regression models with SAS PROC GLIMMIX (Guo & Zhao, 2000). Yet, because the independent variable (i.e., empathy score) was at the participant level, we also estimated ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions predicting the percentages of days when participants provided and received each type of support during the study week (there were also six models). Given that the two-level logistic regressions and OLS regressions revealed the same pattern of findings, we present OLS regression findings for parsimony.

We then tested whether and in what ways participants’ empathy moderated the links between their daily support exchanges and daily mood. In this set of hypotheses, we explored how empathy influenced within-participant associations between support exchanges and mood. We estimated two-level models to consider the participant level (level 2) and the day level (level 1). Predictors were whether participants provided or received each type of support from any social partner each day on 1 (yes) and 0 (no). The key predictor was the interaction term for participant empathy × provision/receipt of each type of support. We centered each participant’s empathy score on the sample mean before assessing the interactions. Given that participants may provide or receive multiple types of support each day, we entered (a) providing emotional support, (b) providing instrumental support, (c) providing advice, and their corresponding interaction terms in one model. Likewise, we included variables regarding receiving three types of support in another model. The outcome variables were participants’ positive and negative mood each day. Because the outcomes were continuous, we estimated two-level linear models with PROC MIXED: 2 (provide, receive) × 2 (positive mood, negative mood; outcomes in separate models) = 4 models. We explored significant interactions using simple slope analyses—we tested and plotted links between support exchanges and mood at different levels of empathy (i.e., 1 SD above and below the mean empathy score). Models controlled for participant age, gender, education, health, marital status, minority, agreeableness, neuroticism, and number of social partners with problems.

Results

We present the percentages of days when participants provided and received emotional support, instrumental support, and advice from any social partner in Supplementary Table S1. Overall, participants exchanged each type of support about one-third to half of the days during the study week (i.e., 2 days of 4 days), with emotional support exchanged most often.

Older adults’ empathy and daily support exchanges

We expected more empathic older adults would provide emotional and instrumental support more often but would not differ in advice giving compared to less empathic older adults. Multiple regressions revealed that more empathic older adults provided emotional support (B = 0.09, p = .005), instrumental support (B = 0.08, p = .02), and advice (B = 0.10, p = .004) on more days (Table 2).

Table 2.
Multiple regression models predicting percentages of days exchanging support from older adults’ empathy.

Variable Providing Receiving

Emotional support Instrumental support Advice Emotional support Instrumental support Advice

B SE B SE B SE B SE B SE B SE

Intercept 0.75* 0.36 0.28 0.35 0.20 0.36 0.71* 0.35 0.55 0.34 0.03 0.32

Participant empathy^a 0.09** 0.03 0.08* 0.03 0.10** 0.03 0.08* 0.03 0.05 0.03 0.04 0.03

Covariates

Participant age −0.01 0.00 −0.01 0.00 −0.00 0.00 −0.01 0.00 −0.00 0.00 −0.00 0.00

Participant gender^b −0.12* 0.05 −0.01 0.05 −0.07 0.05 −0.15* 0.05 −0.17* 0.04 −0.05 0.04

Participant education^c 0.09* 0.05 −0.03 0.04 0.02 0.05 0.08 0.04 0.09 0.04 −0.01 0.04

Participant health^d 0.02 0.02 0.06* 0.02 0.00 0.02 −0.03 0.02 −0.02 0.02 0.00 0.02

Participant marital status^e 0.07 0.05 0.22* 0.05 0.08 0.05 0.05 0.05 0.16* 0.04 0.07 0.04

Participant minority status^f 0.03 0.05 −0.01 0.05 0.07 0.05 −0.07 0.05 −0.01 0.05 0.02 0.04

Participant agreeableness^g −0.01 0.05 −0.08 0.05 0.04 0.05 0.01 0.05 −0.07 0.04 −0.01 0.04

Participant neuroticism^h 0.00 0.03 0.04 0.03 −0.03 0.03 0.04 0.03 0.02 0.03 0.02 0.03

No. of partners with problemsⁱ 0.02* 0.01 0.02 0.01 0.02 0.01 0.02 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.03 0.01

F 4.61* 5.46* 3.24* 4.94* 3.69* 2.03*

Adjusted R² .11 .14 .07 .12 .09 .04

Note. Older adults n = 293, days n = 1,151. Outcome variables were the percentages of days during the study week when participants provided and received each type of support with any social partners.

^aAveraged ratings of 5 empathy items on 1 (not at all), 2 (a little bit), 3 (somewhat), 4 (quite a bit), and 5 (a great deal).

^bRated as 1 (male) and 0 (female).

^cRecoded as 1 (college degree or above) and 0 (below college degree).

^dRated from 1 (poor), 2 (fair), 3 (good), 4 (very good) to 5 (excellent).

^eRecoded as 1 (married/remarried) and 0 (not married).

^fRecoded as 1 (a racial or ethnic minority) and 0 (not a minority).

^gAveraged ratings of 5 agreeableness items (e.g., considerate) on 1 (not at all), 2 (a little bit), 3 (somewhat), 4 (quite a bit), and 5 (a great deal).

^hAveraged ratings of 4 neuroticism items (e.g., nervous) on 1 (not at all), 2 (a little bit), 3 (somewhat), 4 (quite a bit), and 5 (a great deal).

ⁱNumber of social partners who had at least one life problem (e.g., health concerns, emotional problems, financial problems, etc.).

p < .05; p < .01; p < .001.

We also expected more empathic older adults to receive each type of support more often. Empathy was only associated with receiving emotional support more often (B = 0.08, p = .01). There were no significant associations between empathy and receiving instrumental support (B = 0.05, p = .10) or advice (B = 0.04, p = .15; Table 2).

Older adults’ empathy and implications for daily mood

Regarding daily mood, we expected that participants’ empathy would moderate the links between their daily support exchanges and mood. Two-level moderation models revealed two significant interaction effects: empathy × providing emotional support (B = 0.14, p = .002) as well as empathy × providing instrumental support (B = −0.12, p = .007) on daily positive mood. We did not observe significant moderations with respect to providing advice, receiving any type of support or when predicting daily negative mood (Table 3).

Table 3.
Multilevel models predicting older adults’ daily positive mood from support exchanges: Empathy as a moderator.

Variable Positive mood Negative mood

Providing support Receiving support Providing support Receiving support

B SE B SE B SE B SE

Fixed effects

Intercept 3.04* 0.68 2.86* 0.67 1.23* 0.37 1.20 0.37

Participant empathy^a 0.04 0.07 0.04 0.07 0.00 0.04 −0.01 0.04

Emotional support^b −0.05 0.03 0.01 0.03 0.05* 0.02 0.10* 0.03

Emotional support^b × Empathy^a 0.14 0.04 −0.02 0.05 0.02 0.04 −0.04 0.04

Instrumental support^b 0.01 0.03 0.11*** 0.03 0.06* 0.02 0.00 0.03

Instrumental support^b × Empathy^a −0.12** 0.04 −0.05 0.05 −0.01 0.04 0.00 0.04

Advice^b 0.02 0.03 −0.05 0.03 0.00 0.02 0.03 0.03

Advice^b × Empathy^a −0.01 0.05 0.09 0.05 −0.04 0.04 0.02 0.04

Covariates

Participant age −0.01 0.01 −0.01 0.01 −0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

Participant gender^c −0.07 0.09 −0.04 0.09 0.06 0.05 0.07 0.05

Participant education^d −0.15 0.09 −0.17 0.09 0.00 0.05 −0.00 0.05

Participant self-rated health^e 0.10* 0.04 0.10* 0.04 −0.08 0.02 −0.07 0.02

Participant marital status^f 0.21* 0.09 0.20* 0.09 −0.11* 0.05 −0.10* 0.05

Participant minority status^g 0.15 0.09 0.14 0.09 −0.08 0.05 −0.08 0.05

Participant agreeableness^h 0.30 0.09 0.32* 0.09 −0.00 0.05 −0.01 0.05

Participant neuroticismⁱ −0.11 0.06 −0.11 0.06 0.18* 0.03 0.18* 0.03

No. of partners with problems^j 0.00 0.02 0.00 0.02 0.02 0.01 0.02 0.01

Random effects

Intercept VAR 0.41* 0.04 0.40* 0.04 0.11* 0.01 0.10* 0.01

Residual VAR 0.11* 0.01 0.11* 0.01 0.09* 0.00 0.09* 0.00

−2 log likelihood 1,532.5 1,534.4 1,049.2 1,039.2

Note. Older adults n = 293, days n = 1,151. Outcome variables were participants’ peak positive mood and negative mood each day.

^aAveraged ratings of 5 empathy items on 1 (not at all), 2 (a little bit), 3 (somewhat), 4 (quite a bit), and 5 (a great deal).

^bParticipants provided (or received) emotional support, instrumental support, or advice to any social partner this day on 1 (yes) and 0 (no).

^cRated as 1 (male) and 0 (female).

^dRecoded as 1 (college degree or above) and 0 (below college degree).

^eRated from 1 (poor), 2 (fair), 3 (good), 4 (very good) to 5 (excellent).

^fRecoded as 1 (married/remarried) and 0 (not married).

^gRecoded as 1 (a racial or ethnic minority) and 0 (not a minority).

^hAveraged ratings of 5 agreeableness items (e.g., considerate) on 1 (not at all), 2 (a little bit), 3 (somewhat), 4 (quite a bit), and 5 (a great deal).

ⁱAveraged ratings of 4 neuroticism items (e.g., nervous) on 1 (not at all), 2 (a little bit), 3 (somewhat), 4 (quite a bit), and 5 (a great deal).

^jNumber of social partners who had at least one life problem (e.g., health concerns, emotional problems, financial problems, etc.).

p < .05; p < .01; p < .001.

Simple slope analyses showed that more empathic older adults did not differ in positive mood on days when they provided emotional support compared to when they did not provide such support (B = 0.04, p = .26). Less empathic older adults, however, reported reduced positive mood on days when they provided emotional support (B = −0.14, p < .001; Figure 1(a)).

Figure 1.
Interactions between older adults’ empathy and providing (a) emotional support and (b) instrumental support. High empathy represents 1 SD above the mean empathy and low empathy represents 1 SD below the mean empathy.

As for providing instrumental support, Figure 1(b) shows that more empathic older adults maintained their daily positive mood, regardless of whether they provided instrumental support (B = −0.06, p = .09). Yet, less empathic older adults reported greater positive mood on days when they provided instrumental support compared to when they did not (B = 0.09, p = .02).

Post hoc tests

We also reestimated all analyses for older women and men separately to explore potential gender differences. More empathic older women provided each type of support (emotional: B = 0.11, p = .02; instrumental: B = 0.09, p = .04; advice: B = 0.12, p = .01) and received emotional support (B = 0.10, p = .03) more often than less empathic older women. We did not observe associations between empathy and frequency of provision of support in older men. Findings with regard to daily mood showed the same pattern as the main findings presented above for both older women and men. The only exception is that less empathic older men experienced reduced positive mood when receiving advice from social partners (B = −0.12, p < .05). We did not observe this effect in more empathic older men or in older women in general.

Discussion

This is the first study that assesses whether and in what ways older adults’ empathy may influence their daily support exchanges with close partners and their own daily mood. Findings revealed that overall more empathic older adults were more involved with close partners than less empathic older adults. Older adults’ empathy also had differential implications for the links between support exchanges and daily mood.

Older adults’ empathy and daily support exchanges

Findings offer additional evidence for the empathy-altruism hypothesis (Batson, 2011), in that more empathic older adults provided each type of support (i.e., emotional, instrumental, advice) more often than less empathic older adults. We did not expect empathy to facilitate advice giving but this study suggests that more empathic adults provide more help in a variety of settings. Although advice can be undesired in close ties (Gleason & Iida, 2015; Thoits, 2011), more empathic older adults are typically more willing to devote time and energy to their social partners. These older adults may offer advice in a less intrusive way than less empathic older adults. This study expands the literature on older adults’ empathy by capturing real-life experiences and including a variety of types of support that older adults exchange with social partners.

Also adding to the literature, this study found that more empathic older adults received more emotional support but did not differ in their receipt of instrumental support or advice. This may be due to more empathic older adults’ greater sensitivity to emotional information. Emotional support can be subtle, with a social partner offering a nice gesture or comment may or may not be interpreted as emotional support. A recent experiment revealed that more empathic individuals manifest fewer eye blinks when viewing emotional stimuli, which indicates their more efficient and automatic processing of others’ emotions than less empathic individuals (Kang, Ham, & Wallraven, 2017). Thus, more empathic older adults may be more likely to detect that their partners have provided emotional support than less empathic older adults.

Interestingly, these positive associations between empathy and daily support exchanges were only evident in older women. It is well-established that women are more empathic than men (Bloise & Johnson, 2007; O’Brien et al., 2013). This study extends prior research by showing that when empathizing with close partners’ emotions, older women may be more responsive and more likely to help than older men. Findings may help explain why women are often more involved in helping close social partners (Eagly, 2009).

Older adults’ empathy and implications for daily mood

We also explored whether and how older adults’ empathy may influence the implications of their support exchanges for their own daily mood. Overall, more empathic older adults seem to maintain their mood regardless of their support exchanges, whereas less empathic older adults experience ups and downs in their mood when providing emotional and instrumental support.

Surprisingly, more empathic older adults did not differ in their mood on days when they provided emotional or instrumental support compared to days when they did not support. It may be that for more empathic older adults, offering support has become a routine and does not necessarily influence their mood. Indeed, prior research has shown that repeated exposure to certain stimuli may reduce individuals’ emotional reactivity to these stimuli, which allows them to return to their usual and stable level of mood (Diener, Lucas, & Scollon, 2006; Grissom & Bhatnagar, 2009). In addition, more empathic older adults’ helping behaviors may lead to some other positive consequences that are not included in this study. For example, given the better-quality support that more empathic older adults typically offer (Verhofstadt et al., 2008; Verhofstadt et al., 2016), they may improve their social partners’ welfare more effectively, which can strengthen emotional bonds between the two parties. This study did not assess relationship qualities on a daily basis but future research may test this possibility.

Yet, empathy does seem to serve as a buffer when older adults provide emotional support, in that less empathic older adults incurred declines in positive mood on days when they provided emotional support. Less empathic older adults offer emotional support less often than their more empathic counterparts and they may view it as something that they are not used to or a situation where they lack control. Also, because less empathic older adults are less attuned to their social partners’ emotions, they may say something awkward or act intrusively in emotional situations (Batson, 2011; Ickes & Hodges, 2013). As such, less empathic older adults’ emotional support may cause conflicts with their social partners, which in turn also reduce their mood on that day (Oakley, Knafo, Madhavan, & Wilson, 2012).

Importantly, less empathic older adults do not always suffer when providing support. We found that less empathic older adults reported increased positive mood on days when they provided instrumental support. Prior research has often associated low empathy with behavioral withdrawal and isolation (Decety & Lamm, 2009); yet, this may not be the case when older adults interact with their close partners. Carstensen’s socioemotional selectivity theory posits that older adults place strong values on close partners (Carstensen, 2006). Thus, support provision may be inevitable in these emotionally connected bonds. Less empathic older adults may show deficits in understanding others’ emotions and providing instrumental support may offer them a more feasible way to stay involved with close partners. Yet, this notion should be interpreted with caution, because we did not ask explicitly whether less empathic older adults provided instrumental support as a compensation. Future research may explore a potential compensatory mechanism between different types of support exchanges.

Limitations and implications

There are several limitations in this study. The current sample included older adults from diverse racial and lower educational backgrounds. Thus, we incurred difficulties when measuring older adults’ empathy using reverse-scored items. We ended up excluding reverse-coded items to assure the validity of the empathy scale; yet, doing so may introduce some bias in this measure. Also, older adults in this study offered daily reports for 4 days on average. We kept the intensive data collection short to avoid fatigue—our participants also engaged in ecological momentary assessments every 3 hr throughout the day. To rule out spurious findings, future studies may include more days when examining older adults’ daily support exchanges.

Moreover, we only considered older adults’ empathy. Support exchanges involve two parties and it is important to examine the social partner’s empathy. For example, older adults may receive greater appreciation when helping a more empathic social partner than a less empathic partner (Booker & Dunsmore, 2016; Breen et al., 2010). When providing support to a less empathic partner with less gratitude, more empathic older adults may also find it more acceptable and less irritating.

Further, this study did not measure the self-centered distress that older adults may experience when sharing others’ negative emotions (i.e., personal distress; Eisenberg & Eggum, 2009). Such distress can co-occur with individuals’ concern for others’ misfortunes and may be especially common in close ties (McGrath & Oakley, 2012). The literature links self-centered distress to fewer helping behaviors and reduced well-being (Decety & Lamm, 2009; Hoffman, 2008) but little research examined these links in real-life settings.

The current study extends prior research by adding empathy to the literature examining older adults’ helping behaviors and also carries practical implications for interventions. We documented individual differences in older adults’ empathy and their daily support exchanges with close partners and also explored same-day consequences of these exchanges. Being empathic is beneficial, which may shed light on interventions targeting older adults with weaker ties and poorer well-being. Indeed, improving older adults’ empathy may facilitate their involvement with close partners and help them maintain relatively stable mood in social experiences. Interestingly, although less empathic older adults may be somewhat isolated given their low engagement in support exchanges, they still benefit from helping closer partners. This finding may offer new insights into training less empathic older adults to be more socially engaged (perhaps by offering help to close partners). For example, less empathic older adults may feel more comfortable offering instrumental support. Thus, intervention practitioners may work on improving the quality of instrumental support that less empathic older adults can offer, which may then strengthen these older adults’ social engagement.

Supplemental material

Supplementary_Table - Older adults’ empathy and daily support exchanges

Supplementary_Table for Older adults’ empathy and daily support exchanges by Meng Huo, Jamie L. Fuentecilla, Kira S. Birditt and Karen L. Fingerman in Journal of Social and Personal Relationships

	M	SD	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13
1. Age	73.73	6.28	—
2. Health^a	3.57	1.03	−.04	—
3. Empathy^b	3.77	0.66	−.04	−.01	—
4. Agreeableness^c	3.46	0.49	−.04	.00	.34***	—
5. Neuroticism^d	2.43	0.69	−.12*	−.24***	−.06	−.12*	—
6. No. of social partners with problems^e	2.28	2.09	−.01	−.11	−.20***	.18**	.06	—
7. Days answering surveys^f	4.07	1.22	−.05	.11	.15**	.10	−.04	.01	—
8. Daily negative mood^g	1.41	0.43	.01	−.26***	.01	−.03	.37***	.16**	−.05	—
9. Daily positive mood^g	3.75	0.70	−.12*	.12*	.12*	.25***	−.12*	.02	.04	−.27***	—
10. No. of social partners in exchanges^h	2.82	2.11	−.12*	.04	.18**	.18**	.08	.14*	.27***	.07	.08	—
	Proportions
11. Male	.45	.04	.05	−.15*	−.26***	.00	−.21***	−.02	−.03	−.06	−.25***	—
12. College degree	.57	−.01	.31***	.02	−.13*	−.06	.04	.05	−.06	−.10	.04	.19**	—
13. Marital statusⁱ	.60	−.20**	.04	−.05	−.11	.11	−.13*	−.04	−.06	.10	−.01	.39***	.14*	—
14. Minority^j	.31	−.15**	−.34***	.02	.05	.13*	−.02	−.16**	.02	.08	.00	.02	−.30***	−.02	—

Variable	Providing	Receiving
Intercept	0.75*	0.36	0.28	0.35	0.20	0.36	0.71*	0.35	0.55	0.34	0.03	0.32
Participant empathy^a	0.09**	0.03	0.08*	0.03	0.10**	0.03	0.08*	0.03	0.05	0.03	0.04	0.03
Covariates
Participant age	−0.01**	0.00	−0.01	0.00	−0.00	0.00	−0.01**	0.00	−0.00	0.00	−0.00	0.00
Participant gender^b	−0.12*	0.05	−0.01	0.05	−0.07	0.05	−0.15***	0.05	−0.17***	0.04	−0.05	0.04
Participant education^c	0.09*	0.05	−0.03	0.04	0.02	0.05	0.08	0.04	0.09	0.04	−0.01	0.04
Participant health^d	0.02	0.02	0.06*	0.02	0.00	0.02	−0.03	0.02	−0.02	0.02	0.00	0.02
Participant marital status^e	0.07	0.05	0.22***	0.05	0.08	0.05	0.05	0.05	0.16***	0.04	0.07	0.04
Participant minority status^f	0.03	0.05	−0.01	0.05	0.07	0.05	−0.07	0.05	−0.01	0.05	0.02	0.04
Participant agreeableness^g	−0.01	0.05	−0.08	0.05	0.04	0.05	0.01	0.05	−0.07	0.04	−0.01	0.04
Participant neuroticism^h	0.00	0.03	0.04	0.03	−0.03	0.03	0.04	0.03	0.02	0.03	0.02	0.03
No. of partners with problemsⁱ	0.02*	0.01	0.02	0.01	0.02	0.01	0.02	0.01	0.01	0.01	0.03**	0.01
F	4.61***	5.46***	3.24***	4.94***	3.69***	2.03*
Adjusted R²	.11	.14	.07	.12	.09	.04

Variable	Positive mood	Negative mood
Fixed effects
Intercept	3.04***	0.68	2.86***	0.67	1.23***	0.37	1.20**	0.37
Participant empathy^a	0.04	0.07	0.04	0.07	0.00	0.04	−0.01	0.04
Emotional support^b	−0.05	0.03	0.01	0.03	0.05*	0.02	0.10***	0.03
Emotional support^b × Empathy^a	0.14**	0.04	−0.02	0.05	0.02	0.04	−0.04	0.04
Instrumental support^b	0.01	0.03	0.11***	0.03	0.06*	0.02	0.00	0.03
Instrumental support^b × Empathy^a	−0.12**	0.04	−0.05	0.05	−0.01	0.04	0.00	0.04
Advice^b	0.02	0.03	−0.05	0.03	0.00	0.02	0.03	0.03
Advice^b × Empathy^a	−0.01	0.05	0.09	0.05	−0.04	0.04	0.02	0.04
Covariates
Participant age	−0.01	0.01	−0.01	0.01	−0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Participant gender^c	−0.07	0.09	−0.04	0.09	0.06	0.05	0.07	0.05
Participant education^d	−0.15	0.09	−0.17	0.09	0.00	0.05	−0.00	0.05
Participant self-rated health^e	0.10*	0.04	0.10*	0.04	−0.08**	0.02	−0.07**	0.02
Participant marital status^f	0.21*	0.09	0.20*	0.09	−0.11*	0.05	−0.10*	0.05
Participant minority status^g	0.15	0.09	0.14	0.09	−0.08	0.05	−0.08	0.05
Participant agreeableness^h	0.30**	0.09	0.32***	0.09	−0.00	0.05	−0.01	0.05
Participant neuroticismⁱ	−0.11	0.06	−0.11	0.06	0.18***	0.03	0.18***	0.03
No. of partners with problems^j	0.00	0.02	0.00	0.02	0.02	0.01	0.02	0.01
Random effects
Intercept VAR	0.41***	0.04	0.40***	0.04	0.11***	0.01	0.10***	0.01
Residual VAR	0.11***	0.01	0.11***	0.01	0.09***	0.00	0.09***	0.00
−2 log likelihood	1,532.5	1,534.4	1,049.2	1,039.2

Footnotes

Authors’ note

Part of this article was presented as a symposium talk at the 2018 Annual Meeting of the Gerontological Society of America, Boston, MA.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The authors certify that they have NO affiliations with or involvement in any organization or entity with any financial interest or nonfinancial interest in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Aging (NIA), Social Networks and Well-being in Late Life: A Study of Daily Mechanisms (R01AG046460; Karen L. Fingerman, Principal Investigator). This study was supported by grant P2CHD042849 awarded to the Population Research Center (PRC) at The University of Texas at Austin by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). This study also was supported by the Donald D. Harrington Dissertation Fellowship awarded to Meng Huo by the University of Texas at Austin.

Open research statement

As part of IARR’s encouragement of open research practices, the authors have provided the following information: This research was not pre-registered. The data used in the research are currently not available to the public. The data can be obtained by emailing: mhuo@austin.utexas.edu. The materials used in the research are currently not available to the public. The materials can be obtained by emailing: mhuo@austin.utexas.edu.

Supplemental material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

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Variable	Providing						Receiving
	Emotional support		Instrumental support		Advice		Emotional support		Instrumental support		Advice
	B	SE	B	SE	B	SE	B	SE	B	SE	B	SE
Intercept	0.75*	0.36	0.28	0.35	0.20	0.36	0.71*	0.35	0.55	0.34	0.03	0.32
Participant empathy^a	0.09**	0.03	0.08*	0.03	0.10**	0.03	0.08*	0.03	0.05	0.03	0.04	0.03
Covariates
Participant age	−0.01**	0.00	−0.01	0.00	−0.00	0.00	−0.01**	0.00	−0.00	0.00	−0.00	0.00
Participant gender^b	−0.12*	0.05	−0.01	0.05	−0.07	0.05	−0.15***	0.05	−0.17***	0.04	−0.05	0.04
Participant education^c	0.09*	0.05	−0.03	0.04	0.02	0.05	0.08	0.04	0.09	0.04	−0.01	0.04
Participant health^d	0.02	0.02	0.06*	0.02	0.00	0.02	−0.03	0.02	−0.02	0.02	0.00	0.02
Participant marital status^e	0.07	0.05	0.22***	0.05	0.08	0.05	0.05	0.05	0.16***	0.04	0.07	0.04
Participant minority status^f	0.03	0.05	−0.01	0.05	0.07	0.05	−0.07	0.05	−0.01	0.05	0.02	0.04
Participant agreeableness^g	−0.01	0.05	−0.08	0.05	0.04	0.05	0.01	0.05	−0.07	0.04	−0.01	0.04
Participant neuroticism^h	0.00	0.03	0.04	0.03	−0.03	0.03	0.04	0.03	0.02	0.03	0.02	0.03
No. of partners with problemsⁱ	0.02*	0.01	0.02	0.01	0.02	0.01	0.02	0.01	0.01	0.01	0.03**	0.01
F	4.61***		5.46***		3.24***		4.94***		3.69***		2.03*
Adjusted R²	.11		.14		.07		.12		.09		.04

Variable	Positive mood				Negative mood
	Providing support		Receiving support		Providing support		Receiving support
	B	SE	B	SE	B	SE	B	SE
Fixed effects
Intercept	3.04***	0.68	2.86***	0.67	1.23***	0.37	1.20**	0.37
Participant empathy^a	0.04	0.07	0.04	0.07	0.00	0.04	−0.01	0.04
Emotional support^b	−0.05	0.03	0.01	0.03	0.05*	0.02	0.10***	0.03
Emotional support^b × Empathy^a	0.14**	0.04	−0.02	0.05	0.02	0.04	−0.04	0.04
Instrumental support^b	0.01	0.03	0.11***	0.03	0.06*	0.02	0.00	0.03
Instrumental support^b × Empathy^a	−0.12**	0.04	−0.05	0.05	−0.01	0.04	0.00	0.04
Advice^b	0.02	0.03	−0.05	0.03	0.00	0.02	0.03	0.03
Advice^b × Empathy^a	−0.01	0.05	0.09	0.05	−0.04	0.04	0.02	0.04
Covariates
Participant age	−0.01	0.01	−0.01	0.01	−0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Participant gender^c	−0.07	0.09	−0.04	0.09	0.06	0.05	0.07	0.05
Participant education^d	−0.15	0.09	−0.17	0.09	0.00	0.05	−0.00	0.05
Participant self-rated health^e	0.10*	0.04	0.10*	0.04	−0.08**	0.02	−0.07**	0.02
Participant marital status^f	0.21*	0.09	0.20*	0.09	−0.11*	0.05	−0.10*	0.05
Participant minority status^g	0.15	0.09	0.14	0.09	−0.08	0.05	−0.08	0.05
Participant agreeableness^h	0.30**	0.09	0.32***	0.09	−0.00	0.05	−0.01	0.05
Participant neuroticismⁱ	−0.11	0.06	−0.11	0.06	0.18***	0.03	0.18***	0.03
No. of partners with problems^j	0.00	0.02	0.00	0.02	0.02	0.01	0.02	0.01
Random effects
Intercept VAR	0.41***	0.04	0.40***	0.04	0.11***	0.01	0.10***	0.01
Residual VAR	0.11***	0.01	0.11***	0.01	0.09***	0.00	0.09***	0.00
−2 log likelihood	1,532.5		1,534.4		1,049.2		1,039.2