TY - JOUR
T1 - Social Discounting in the Elderly
T2 - Senior Citizens are Good Samaritans to Strangers
AU - Pornpattananangkul, Narun
AU - Chowdhury, Avijit
AU - Feng, Lei
AU - Yu, Rongjun
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 The Author(s).
PY - 2019/1/1
Y1 - 2019/1/1
N2 - Objectives People tend to become more generous as they grow older, which may reflect an increase in their ego-transcending motives (i.e., concern more for the benefit of recipients than of the benefactors). The current study aimed to examine evidence for an enhanced ego-transcending motive among older adults. Methods We adapted the social-discounting framework to quantify generosity toward people of different social distances, ranging from socially close others (e.g., family and close friends) to socially distant others (e.g., total strangers), in both young and older adults. We hypothesized that the normative decrease in generosity as a function of social distance (e.g., less generous towards strangers compared to close friends) will be mitigated in older adults. Results Our results supported that older adults were more generous toward socially distant others (i.e., less social discounting) compared to younger adults. Discussion Thus, consistent with the idea that the elderly are more oriented to ego-transcending goals, older adults are generous even when their generosity is unlikely to be reciprocated.
AB - Objectives People tend to become more generous as they grow older, which may reflect an increase in their ego-transcending motives (i.e., concern more for the benefit of recipients than of the benefactors). The current study aimed to examine evidence for an enhanced ego-transcending motive among older adults. Methods We adapted the social-discounting framework to quantify generosity toward people of different social distances, ranging from socially close others (e.g., family and close friends) to socially distant others (e.g., total strangers), in both young and older adults. We hypothesized that the normative decrease in generosity as a function of social distance (e.g., less generous towards strangers compared to close friends) will be mitigated in older adults. Results Our results supported that older adults were more generous toward socially distant others (i.e., less social discounting) compared to younger adults. Discussion Thus, consistent with the idea that the elderly are more oriented to ego-transcending goals, older adults are generous even when their generosity is unlikely to be reciprocated.
KW - Aging
KW - Altruism
KW - Ego transcendence
KW - Generosity
KW - Prosociality
KW - Social Discounting
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85039415857&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1093/geronb/gbx040
DO - 10.1093/geronb/gbx040
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 28383666
AN - SCOPUS:85039415857
SN - 1079-5014
VL - 74
SP - 52
EP - 58
JO - Journals of Gerontology - Series B Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences
JF - Journals of Gerontology - Series B Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences
IS - 1
ER -