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Facets of Interpersonal Accuracy Across the Lifespan: Is There a Single Skill in Older Age?

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Abstract

This study investigated age differences and similarities in younger and older women’s ability to accurately judge others’ emotions, personality, and rapport, collectively referred to as interpersonal accuracy (IPA). A sample of 124 young (ages 18–22) and 94 older women (ages 60–90) completed four different IPA tasks: two emotion perception tasks using posed stimuli, and two interaction-based tasks where participants judged their interaction partner’s personality and perceived rapport. Accuracy performance was analyzed using both frequentist and Bayesian approaches. Young women outperformed older women in judging emotions from static facial expressions as well as dynamic multimodal emotion portrayals, but not in judging an interaction partner’s personality traits or rating of rapport. The age difference was stronger for the dynamic as compared to the static stimuli. Performance across tasks was correlated more in older than in younger women, in particular among the emotion recognition tasks. These results offer some evidence for a single IPA skill in older compared to younger adults and may guide future work in measuring changes to interpersonal accuracy across the adult lifespan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Psychology, University of Bern, Fabrikstr. 8, 3012, Bern, Switzerland

    Katja Schlegel

  2. Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA

    Ishabel M. Vicaria & Derek M. Isaacowitz

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  1. Katja Schlegel
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  2. Ishabel M. Vicaria
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Schlegel, K., Vicaria, I.M. & Isaacowitz, D.M. Facets of Interpersonal Accuracy Across the Lifespan: Is There a Single Skill in Older Age?. J Nonverbal Behav 44, 253–278 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-019-00326-x

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