Abstract This paper investigates the idea that Theory of Mind (ToM), empathic understanding and moral reasoning are linked, and together contribute to prosocial behaviour. All three cognitive processes are explored in adolescents (aged 14–17 years), young-adults (aged 18–24 years) and middle-adults (aged 25–55). A statistically significant age-related difference was found on all measures between the adolescent group and the middle-adult group. Except for verbal ToM, all measures detected a statistically significant age-related difference between the adolescent group and the young adult group. However, except for verbal and visual ToM, no statistically significant age-related difference was found between the young-adult and middle-adult groups. A small to medium positive association was found between each of the five measures. These findings suggest that beyond adolescence ToM, empathic understanding, and moral reasoning might be improved which could be useful to researchers and practitioners interested in the later enhancement of prosociality in older individuals.

中文翻译：

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支持亲社会性：心理理论、移情理解和道德推理中与年龄相关的表现

摘要 本文研究了心理理论 (ToM)、移情理解和道德推理相互关联并共同促进亲社会行为的观点。所有这三种认知过程都在青少年（14-17 岁）、青年（18-24 岁）和中年人（25-55 岁）中进行了探索。在青少年组和中成人组之间的所有测量中都发现了统计学上显着的年龄相关差异。除了口头 ToM 之外，所有措施都检测到青少年组和年轻成人组之间存在统计学上显着的年龄相关差异。然而，除了语言和视觉 ToM 之外，年轻和中年组之间没有发现统计学上显着的年龄相关差异。在五项措施中的每一项之间都发现了小到中等的正相关。