Research published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General reports that older adults judge perpetrators with harmful intentions more harshly and those causing accidental harm more leniently compared to younger adults.
Understanding how we judge others based on their intentions and actions is a key aspect of moral psychology. Intentions play a significant role in shaping our moral judgments and emotional responses. As we age, our motivations and priorities change, which might influence how we perceive and react to sociomoral violations. Previous research has shown that children increasingly weigh intentions over outcomes as they grow older, a trend that continues into adulthood. But how does this relationship evolve in later life? A series of two studies conducted by Alyssa R. Minton and colleagues explore this scientific gap.
Study 1 included 225 participants, comprising 112 younger adults (aged 18-30) and 113 older adults (aged 60-79), recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk. Participants were presented with scenarios where a perpetrator either desired to harm but did not succeed (desire/no consequence) or caused harm accidentally without malicious intent (no desire/consequence).
After each scenario, participants rated the perpetrator’s moral character and actions using a 7-point scale for person judgments (e.g., how “sick and twisted” the perpetrator was) and act judgments (e.g., how much blame the perpetrator deserved). Emotional responses, including anger, disgust, and sympathy, were measured through both nonverbal endorsements (selecting faces that best represented their feelings) and verbal ones (rating terms like “outraged” and “disgusted”).
The study also included control measures for trait disgust and aggression to account for individual differences. Participants completed the scenarios in random order, followed by the trait measures and a demographic questionnaire.
The researchers found significant age differences in moral judgments and emotional reactions to sociomoral violations. Older adults judged perpetrators with harmful intentions more harshly than younger adults, even when no harm occurred.
Conversely, they judged accidental harms more leniently. Emotional reactions also aligned with these judgments: older adults reported higher levels of disgust and lower levels of sympathy towards perpetrators with harmful desires but felt less disgust and similar levels of sympathy towards those causing accidental harm.
These findings suggest that older adults’ judgments and emotions are more strongly influenced by the intentions behind actions, highlighting their sensitivity to perceived threats to social harmony.
The goal of Study 2 was to determine if the observed age differences in moral judgments and emotions were specific to sociomoral contexts by introducing scenarios designed to evoke anger and disgust without direct sociomoral implications. A total of 467 participants, including 249 younger adults (aged 18-30) and 218 older adults (aged 55-79), were recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk.
Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: desire/no consequence, no desire/consequence, anger, or disgust. The desire/no consequence and no desire/consequence conditions were the same as those used in Study 1. The anger condition included scenarios where perpetrators acted negligently, leading to negative outcomes (e.g., starting a fire out of curiosity that damages property). The disgust condition featured scenarios where perpetrators engaged in behaviors typically eliciting disgust (e.g., eating food from an unsanitary source).
Participants rated the perpetrator’s moral character and actions using a 7-point scale for person judgments (e.g., how “sick and twisted” the perpetrator was) and act judgments (e.g., how much blame the perpetrator deserved). Participants then rated their anger, disgust, and sympathy. Participants once again completed measures of trait aggression and trait disgust, and provided demographic information.
Study 2 revealed that the pattern of age differences in moral judgments and emotional reactions persisted across different contexts. Older adults judged perpetrators with harmful intentions more harshly than younger adults, even when no harm occurred, and were more lenient towards accidental harms.
However, when scenarios evoked anger or disgust without a clear sociomoral component, the age differences were less pronounced. Specifically, both age groups reacted similarly in the anger and disgust conditions, suggesting that the presence of a clear social target or sociomoral context is crucial for the observed age differences in moral judgments and emotional reactions.
These results indicate that older adults’ sensitivity to sociomoral violations is heightened when there is a direct social implication, reinforcing their motivation to maintain social harmony.
One limitation is the potential variability in interpreting the severity of scenarios. The subjective nature of moral judgments suggests that personal experiences and cultural backgrounds could influence responses, potentially confounding the observed age differences.
The research, “Motives Matter More With Age: Adult Age Differences in Response to Sociomoral Violations”, was authored by Alyssa R. Minton, Jason S. Snyder, Nathaniel A. Young, Verena Graupmann, and Joseph A. Mikels.
