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Background: Research in nursing homes mainly focused on interventions for residents affected by cognitive decline. Few studies have considered healthy older adults living in nursing homes, and this research targeted cognitive functioning. Aims: To evaluate whether socio-cognitive abilities can be improved by means of a theory of mind (ToM) training conducted by nursing home’s operators. Results: Results revealed that older adults benefitted from the ToM intervention in both practiced and non-practiced tasks, while the control group showed no change from pre- to post-test evaluation. Analyses on errors scores indicated that the ToM intervention led to a reduction of both excessive mentalizing and absence of mental states inference. Discussion: The conversation-based ToM intervention proved to be effective in improving socio-cognitive skills in cognitively healthy nursing home residents. Notably, older adults were able to transfer the skills acquired during the training to new material. Conclusions: Promoting healthy resident’s ToM ability could positively impact on their social cognition, consequently increasing their quality of life. Our findings showed that the intervention can be feasibly managed by health care assistants within the residential context.

Background: Studies on age differences in emotional states during the COVID-19 pandemic showed that older adults experienced greater emotional wellbeing compared to younger adults. We hypothesized these age differences to be related to the perception of closeness to family/friends or the engagement in daily activities during the pandemic. Aim: To investigate age differences in positive and negative emotional experiences and whether the perception of closeness to family/friends and the engagement in daily activities during pandemic explained such age-related differences. Methods: Through a cross-sectional study, 1,457 adults aged 18–87 years old completed an online survey assessing positive and negative emotional experiences, the perception of more closeness to family/friends, and daily activities that participants started/re-started during the pandemic. Results: Increasing age was associated with more positive and less negative emotional experiences. Age differences in positive emotional experience were explained by the perception of more closeness to friends and not by the engagement in daily activities. For negative emotional experience age, differences remained significant even after accounting for the perception of closeness to family/friends and engagements in daily activities. Discussion: Older adults’ greater overall level of positive emotional experience was explained by their greater perception of more closeness to friends. We speculate that social closeness provides a coping mechanism to increase emotional wellbeing employed especially in older adults. Conclusion: Our findings reinforce the link between perceived social closeness and emotional wellbeing especially in older adults. To cope with stressful situation, it is important to encourage older adults to increase the closeness to their social network.

Findings from cross-cultural theory-of-mind studies highlight potential measurement effects and both general (e.g., East-West) and specific (e.g., pedagogical experiences) cultural contrasts. We compared theory-of-mind scores for children from UK and Italy (two Western countries that differ in age of school entry) and Japan (a Far-Eastern country in which children, like their Italian counterparts, start school later than British children). Confirmatory factor analysis was applied to data from 268 age-gender- and verbal ability-matched 5- to 6-year olds. Key findings were that (i) all 8 indicators loaded onto a single latent factor; and (ii) this latent factor explained significant variance in each group, with just one indicator showing differential item functioning. Supporting the importance of pedagogical experiences, British children outperformed both their Italian and Japanese counterparts.