The Cognitive Basis of Social Communication Across the Lifespan by Ferguson Heather J.; Bradford Elisabeth E. F;

Author:Ferguson, Heather J.; Bradford, Elisabeth E. F;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press USA - OSO
Published: 2021-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

6

Social Interactions in Old Age

Victoria E. A. Brunsdon*, Elisabeth E. F. Bradford*, and Heather J. Ferguson

6.1 Introduction

The world’s population is ageing. In 1980, the global population aged 60 years or over was 382 million. By 2017, this had tripled to 962 million and it is projected to double again to nearly 2.1 billion by 2050. It is expected that there will be more people aged 60 and over than aged 10 to 24 years old in 2050, largely due to increased life expectancies worldwide (Office for National Statistics, 2018; Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, 2017). It is critical to understand the challenges faced by ageing populations in maintaining and improving quality of life—for instance, our social relationships and experiences are crucial for healthy ageing, with research indicating that the quantity and quality of social interactions are associated with better mental and physical health outcomes (Bailey et al., 2008; Sullivan & Ruffman, 2004a; Strang et al., 2012). Given this, a better understanding of the behaviour and cognition in older people relating to social interactions is required (e.g. in terms of characterization of the cognitive processes underlying social interactions in healthy ageing), to allow us to be better able to meet the needs of an ageing population on a global scale.

During social interactions, we need to understand other people’s emotions, thoughts, and intentions to successfully predict and interpret their behaviour. Thus, everyday social experiences rely on our social-cognitive capacities, such as understanding mental states, empathic accuracy, and recognition of others’ emotions. Yet, social cognition—the cognitive processes utilized to understand social agents and social interactions—may be reduced in older age, resulting in impaired social functioning (Bailey et al., 2008; Henry et al., 2013; Moran et al., 2012; Martin et al., 2019). The majority of social cognition research has been conducted on younger adults, or on the development of social cognition in children, with much less focus on older people, and even less on middle-aged adults. Social cognition research can help us to understand cognitive continuity and change, and how to improve our social interactions as we get older. This is necessary because impairments in understanding others’ mental states or emotional states could have widespread impacts on social interactions, with clear consequences for a person’s health and well-being. For example, there is a strong relationship between social interaction and physical and mental health in older adults, with social isolation in older age leading to more adverse outcomes (Unger et al., 1997; Gheysen et al., 2018; Zhu et al., 2016). Studies have shown that older people with more social contacts live longer, irrespective of health status, socio-economic status, smoking, drinking, physical activity, or obesity (Berkman & Syme, 1979). Furthermore, social interactions have been shown to alleviate some of the learning and memory problems experienced by older people (e.g. Derksen et al., 2015). Thus, there are clear benefits to further building our understanding of social cognition in older life, allowing for insights into how social cognition abilities, such as being able to accurately

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.