Motives Matter More With Age: Adult Age Differences in Response to Sociomoral Violations

Moral judgments and emotional reactions to sociomoral violations are heavily impacted by a perpetrator's intentions and desires, which pose a threat to social harmony. Given that older adults are more motivated to maintain interpersonal harmony relative to younger adults, older adults may be more reactive to malicious desires. In three studies, we investigated adult age differences in moral judgments and emotional reactions to sociomoral violations. In all studies, participants read scenarios in which a perpetrator either (a) desired to harm another but nothing happened, or (b) harmed another accidentally without malicious desire. Study 2 incorporated additional scenarios designed to evoke anger and disgust without explicitly implicating another person to evaluate whether age differences emerge only when sociomoral violations against another are salient. In Study 3, we examined the combined effects of malicious desires and harmful outcomes by including scenarios in which (a) harmful desires were coupled with harmful outcomes, and (b) benign desires were coupled with benign outcomes. Predominantly across the studies, older adults judged perpetrators who desired to harm another more harshly but judged perpetrators who accidentally harmed another more leniently than younger adults. Emotional reactions generally corresponded with the differences in judgments. Taken together, this work suggests that desires more strongly impact older relative to younger adults' judgments and emotional reactions in sociomoral contexts. Public Significance StatementIn reaction to sociomoral violations, older adults were less harsh and less negative than younger adults for accidental harms. However, older adults reported harsher character judgments and less sympathy than younger adults toward perpetrators who desired to harm someone else, even if no harm occurred. These findings highlight that sociomoral desires have greater impact on the moral judgments and emotional reactions of older relative to younger adults.