Emotional Contagion Characteristics and Relationship with cognition levels in the elderly

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The Emotional Contagion Ability Scale and Empirical Validity in Chinese College Students.pdf

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How to cite: Xu, E., & Hu, P. (2025). Emotional Contagion Characteristics and Relationship with cognition levels in the elderly. Chinese Mental Health Journal, 39(6), 496-501.

http://kns.cnki.net/kcms/detail/11.1873.R.20250513.1841.010.html

Article Highlights

Objective: To explore the characteristics of emotional contagion in the elderly and analyze its relationship with cognitive level.
Methods: Totally 33 elderly people and 29 young people were recruited in experiment 1. By watching emotional videos, data on facial muscle activity and subjective emotion scores were collected to explore the characteristics of emotional contagion in the elderly. Experiment 2 recruited 16 elderly people with mild cognitive impairment and 18 healthy elderly people to further explore the impact of cognitive ability on emotional contagion in the elderly.
Results: There were no significant differences in muscle activity data between the elderly and young people (experiment 1) and between the elderly with mild cognitive impairment and elderly with normal cognitive level (experiment 2) (Ps> 0.05). The elderly group scored higher on internal emotional experience of happy emotions than the young people (P＜0.05); the elderly with mild cognitive impairment had a higher score on internal emotional experience of sad emotions than the elderly with normal cognitive level (P＜0.05).
Conclusion: The emotional contagion characteristics of the elderly are characterized by a stronger ability to contaminate happy emotions. Differences in cognitive levels may affect the process of emotional contagion in the elderly, elderly people with mild cognitive impairment are more susceptible to sad emotions.