Moral judgments change across the lifespan in older adults
Empirical studies consistently demonstrate that moral judgments change across the lifespan, with older adults exhibiting a significantly higher tendency toward deontological (duty-based) rather than utilitarian decision-making compared to younger adults.
The retrieved literature (specifically papers 0, 1, 4, and 7) directly investigates and supports the claim that moral judgments differ across age groups, showing that older adults systematically favor deontological judgments and exhibit different cognitive and affective patterns in moral evaluation compared to younger adults.
Simon McNair, Yasmina Okan, Constantinos Hadjichristidis, Wändi Bruine de Bruin. Age differences in moral judgment: Older adults are more deontological than younger adults. 2018. https://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.2086
Results from experiments indicate that older adults make significantly more deontological moral judgments compared to younger adults.
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Shenyang Huang, L. Faul, Gunes Sevinc, Laetitia Mwilambwe-Tshilobo, Roni Setton, Amber W. Lockrow, Natalie C. Ebner, G. Turner, R. N. Spreng, Felipe De Brigard. Age Differences in Intuitive Moral Decision-Making: Associations with Inter-Network Neural Connectivity. 2021. https://doi.org/10.1037/pag0000633
Older adults were more likely to endorse deontological decisions, particularly when the choice was immediately compelling or intuitive.
Ryan T. Daley, Elizabeth A. Kensinger. Age-related differences in Default Mode Network resting-state functional connectivity but not gray matter volume relate to sacrificial moral decision-making and working memory performance.. 2022. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2022.108399
Older adults make fewer utilitarian decisions than younger adults during sacrificial moral dilemmas, which relate to age-related neural connectivity changes.
Minjie Lu, Helene H Fung. MORAL GAIN OR DECAY? EXAMINING AGE-RELATED CHANGES IN MORAL JUDGMENT. 2019. https://doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igz038.2888
Studies examining age-related changes demonstrate that older adults perceive immoral acts differently and show divergent patterns in cognitive and emotional dimensions of moral judgment.
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