The Effects of Culture and View of Aging on Perspective Taking in Young Adults

Abstract

Young adults’ ability to recall a story about others, especially of an older adult, may be influenced by culture-based views on aging. In the present study, we extended a perspective-taking paradigm designed by Sullivan et al. (2010) by adding a cultural component to the methodology and testing participants’ perspective-taking performance. Participants from the United States and Hong Kong heard two stories about a 25-year-old and a 75-year-old character from either location. Overall, we found that both groups recalled more negative than positive events. However, Hong Kong participants, who showed a more negative view of aging than US participants, used more negative words to describe the older adult than the young adult story. These findings suggest an intricate relationship between culture-based views of aging and the language used in the recall of emotional events.