Margoni, F., Geipel, J., Hadjichristidis, C. orcid.org/0000-0002-9441-6650 et al. (2 more authors) (2023) Age-Related Differences in Moral Judgment: The Role of Probability Judgments. Cognitive Science, 47 (9). e13345. ISSN 0364-0213
Abstract
Research suggests that moral evaluations change during adulthood. Older adults (75+) tend to judge accidentally harmful acts more severely than younger adults do, and this age-related difference is in part due to the greater negligence older adults attribute to the accidental harmdoers. Across two studies (N = 254), we find support for this claim and report the novel discovery that older adults’ increased attribution of negligence, in turn, is associated with a higher perceived likelihood that the accident would occur. We propose that, because older adults perceive accidents as more likely than younger adults do, they condemn the agents and their actions more and even infer that the agents’ omission to exercise due care is intentional. These findings refine our understanding of the cognitive processes underpinning moral judgment in older adulthood and highlight the role of subjective probability judgments in negligence attribution.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2023 The Authors. Cognitive Science published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Cognitive Science Society (CSS). This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes. |
Keywords: | Moral judgment; Aging; Probability; Outcome bias; Negligence; Intentionality |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Business (Leeds) > Management Division (LUBS) (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 21 Sep 2023 11:05 |
Last Modified: | 21 Sep 2023 11:05 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/cogs.13345 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:203437 |