OBJECTIVES Empathy is fundamental to social cognition, driving prosocial behaviour and mental health but associations with aging and other socio-demographic characteristics are unclear. We therefore aimed to characterise associations of these characteristics with two main self-reported components of empathy, namely empathic-concern (feeling compassion) and perspective-taking (understanding others' perspective). METHODS We asked participants in an internet-based survey of UK-dwelling adults aged ≥18 years to complete the Interpersonal Reactivity Index subscales measuring empathic concern and perspective taking, and sociodemographic and personality questionnaires. We weighted the sample to be UK population representative and employed multivariable weighted linear regression models. RESULTS In 30,033 respondents, mean empathic concern score was 3.86 (95% confidence interval 3.85, 3.88) and perspective taking was 3.57 (3.56. 3.59); the correlation between these sub-scores was 0.45 (p < 0.001). Empathic concern and perspective taking followed an inverse-u shape trajectory in women with peak between 40 and 50 years whereas in men, perspective taking declines with age but empathic concern increases. In fully adjusted models, greater empathic concern was associated with female gender, non-white ethnicity, having more education, working in health, social-care, or childcare professions, and having higher neuroticism, extroversion, openness to experience and agreeableness traits. Perspective taking was associated with younger age, female gender, more education, employment in health or social-care, neuroticism, openness, and agreeableness. CONCLUSIONS Empathic compassion and understanding are distinct dimensions of empathy with differential demographic associations. Perspective taking may decline due to cognitive inflexibility with older age whereas empathic concern increases in older men suggesting it is socially-driven.

中文翻译：

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英国大型人口样本中的移情及其与年龄和社会人口学特征的关联。

目标同理心是社会认知、推动亲社会行为和心理健康的基础，但与衰老和其他社会人口特征的关联尚不清楚。因此，我们旨在描述这些特征与共情的两个主要自我报告组成部分的关联，即移情关注（感到同情）和观点采择（理解他人的观点）。方法 我们要求参加一项针对英国居住的 18 岁以上成年人的互联网调查的参与者完成人际反应指数分量表，衡量共情关注和观点采择，以及社会人口统计学和人格问卷。我们对样本进行加权以使其具有英国人口代表性，并采用多变量加权线性回归模型。结果 在 30,033 名受访者中，平均移情关注得分为 3.86（95% 置信区间 3.85, 3.88），观点采纳为 3.57（3.56. 3.59）；这些子分数之间的相关性为 0.45 (p < 0.001)。移情关注和观点采纳在女性中呈倒 U 形轨迹，峰值在 40 至 50 岁之间，而在男性中，观点采纳随着年龄的增长而下降，但移情关注增加。在完全调整后的模型中，更大的共情关注与女性、非白人种族、受过更多教育、从事健康、社会护理或儿童保育专业以及具有更高的神经质、外向性、对经验的开放性和宜人性特征相关。观点采择与年龄较小、女性、受教育程度较高、在健康或社会保健方面的就业、神经质、开放性和宜人性有关。结论 同理心和理解是同理心的不同维度，具有不同的人口统计学关联。由于年龄较大的认知不灵活，观点采择可能会下降，而老年男性的移情关注增加，表明这是社会驱动的。