![]() ![]() As aging imposes new constraints due to declines in physical condition, immunological health, and social status ( 19– 22), older individuals might need to adjust their social choices. ![]() Cost-benefit tradeoffs about whether to be social and with whom to socialize are critical for many animals. Accordingly, if this kind of subjective future time perspective is causally necessary to generate the human social aging phenotype, then other animals should not show these characteristic shifts.Īn alternative possibility is that the human social aging phenotype is mediated by proximate mechanisms that are more widely shared across species. Even verbal young children show limitations in future-oriented cognition, and can struggle to imagine their future selves ( 18). Some nonhumans do engage in forms of future-oriented planning, but only in short-term food acquisition contexts such as saving a tool to access food hours or days later, and some of these instances may actually recruit lower-level mechanisms ( 16, 17). However, there is no evidence that any other species are aware of their own future mortality or can imagine far-off future experiences in this rich way. Socioemotional selectivity theory proposes that changes in social goals and behavior during aging are causally dependent on an awareness of shortened personal time horizons. Here, we use a comparative approach to provide a new test of the origins of human social aging patterns. Thus, the role of shortened time perspectives in social selectivity during aging is currently unclear. However, some evidence indicates that changes in socioemotional goals can be independent of future time perspective ( 14, 15). In support of this view, older adults perceive a more limited future than younger adults people who anticipate curtailed time horizons-due to an illness diagnosis, natural disaster, or a geographic move-generally exhibit preferences like older adults and experimental manipulation of future time perspective shifts socioemotional biases ( 9, 11– 13). The core idea is that when individuals perceive the future as expansive (as in youth) they prioritize building new relationships and interacting with many partners, whereas when time is perceived as short (as in old age) people focus on existing, important social ties. Socioemotional selectivity theory has emerged as the most influential explanation for the human social aging phenotype, arguing that the central process generating lifespan shifts in sociality is an explicit sense of future personal time and mortality ( 10, 11). The origin of this social aging pattern is therefore a central issue both for evolutionary perspectives on the life-course, and for promoting wellbeing in old age. ![]() Second, older adults exhibit a positivity bias, showing greater attention to and memory for positive versus negative socioemotional information, and reduced engagement in tension and conflicts ( 7– 9). First, older adults across societies have smaller yet more emotionally-fulfilling social networks than younger adults, due to an increasing focus on existing close relationships rather than new relationships ( 3– 6). In humans, old age is characterized by increasing selectivity for positive, meaningful social interactions, manifesting as a cluster of behavioral and cognitive features we term the human social aging phenotype. Social bonds have adaptive consequences over the lifespan: strong social support enhances health, longevity, and biological fitness ( 1, 2). ![]()
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