title: Effects of aging on the relation between episodic simulation and prosocial intentions.
abstract: Imagining helping a person in need can facilitate prosocial intentions. Here we investigated how this effect can change with aging. We found that, similar to young adults, older adults were more willing to help a person in need when they imagined helping that person compared to a baseline condition that did not involve helping, but not compared to a conceptual helping control condition. Controlling for heightened emotional concern in older adults revealed an age-related difference in the effect of imagining on willingness to help. While we observed age-related condition effects, we also found that the subjective vividness of scene imagery predicted willingness to help for both age groups. Our findings provide insight into the relations among episodic simulation, healthy aging, emotion, and prosociality. Implications for effects of episodic memory and aging on social decision-making are discussed.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , University at Albany, State University of New York , Albany , NY , USA.
authors.forename: Brendan
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-5989-1632
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Gaesser
authors.affiliation: b Department of Psychology , Harvard University , Cambridge , MA , USA.
authors.forename: Haley
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Dodds
authors.affiliation: b Department of Psychology , Harvard University , Cambridge , MA , USA.
authors.forename: Daniel L
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-2460-6061
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Schacter
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination / Q000502:physiology; D033182:Intention; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D061212:Memory, Episodic; D012919:Social Behavior; D012938:Social Perception; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Future thinking; episodic memory; morality; prosociality; social cognition