“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men”
- Herman Melville

A study published in Psychological Science conducted by Patricia L. Lockwood, Ayat Abdurahman, Anthony S. Gabay, Daniel Drew, Marin Tamm, Masud Husain, and Matthew A. J. Apps found that older adults were more willing than younger adults to perform selfless acts towards others, demonstrating higher levels of prosociality. 

Prosociality refers to the ways in which people exert physical effort and force to help others, especially in the aging population. While this topic has grown in popularity in recent years, it still remains an area of study that has not been researched in depth. 

The helping abilities of 95 young adults (18-36 years old), and 92 older adults (55-84 years old) were examined. Computational modelling was used to test their willingness to put physical effort into acts benefiting themselves and others.  

Younger adults more often chose to exert higher effort levels for themselves and exert less effort for others. Older adults, however, exerted equal levels of force for both themselves and others. This means that, when it came to helping others, older adults were more likely to be of assistance than younger adults.

These findings showcase the aging population’s contributions to prosociality, human behaviour, and overall social cohesion. This also raises a larger question: are older adults more prosocial because of the time period they were raised in or does getting older naturally make you more willing to help others?