A new study has found that older adults often struggle to detect sarcasm compared to their younger counterparts.



Researchers at the University of Aberdeen found that people over 65 years old are more likely to take sarcastic comments literally.

To reach this conclusion, people were shown examples of conversations and asked to determine whether or not the chat was sarcastic.

Publishing the results in Developmental Psychology journal, the researchers found that younger and middle-aged adults were better at identifying sarcasm than older people.

Professor Louise Phillips, who led the study, warned that being unable to understand sarcasm could have an adverse affect on our relationships as we get older.

She said, “We already know that engaging in social interactions is valuable, particularly as we age, and we were interested in finding out how the normal ageing process might affect our ability to understand subtle social cues such as sarcasm.



"Until now, no-one has looked at how older adults interpret sarcasm, and specifically, if they can flip the literal meaning to understand the intended meaning. So, we are interested in finding out whether our ability to understand other people’s intentions changes as we age.”

She added that context is important to help people understand what is actually meant.

"For example, if someone says ‘I see you’re on time as usual’, this could literally mean what it says. Or, there might be a sarcastic intention, and then the underlying message is 'You’re late. As usual.'”

“Deciding which way to interpret the statement depends on the context, and also the speaker’s tone of voice and facial expression. How this is interpreted can obviously affect the outcome of the conversation and ultimately determine how relationships develop.”

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