<p><strong>Moral Judgement:</strong></p>

<p>From <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_reasoning" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Wikipedia</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>... moral judgment ... is "the ability to reason correctly about what
  'ought' to be done in a specific situation."</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Research on moral judgement was pioneered by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Piaget#Education:_Morality" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Jean Piaget</a>, summarized in his book "The Moral Judgment of the Child" (1932), in which he implies that moral development levels off in adolescence.  Piaget introduced the standard <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg%27s_stages_of_moral_development" rel="nofollow noreferrer">moral judgement task</a> paradigm that is still often used today to assess moral development by asking subjects to make moral judgements on particular <a href="http://alevelpsychology.co.uk/?q=piagets-theory-moral-development" rel="nofollow noreferrer">stories or dilemmas</a>.  In his research, peak performance on these tests was achieved around mid-adolescence, and he never bothered to test older subjects.  Interestingly, performance of older adults was only finally <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8921148" rel="nofollow noreferrer">put to the test</a> in 1996.  This study showed that (a) moral development does not peak in adolescence, as adults perform slightly better, and (b) older adults do not differ much in overall performance than younger adults, but the details are mixed - in some areas of morality they perform better and in others worse.</p>

<p>Beginning in the 1960's, Piaget's work was extended by other researchers such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Kohlberg</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Gilligan" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Gilligan</a> to include moral development throughout people's entire life-span.  This spurred much research on moral development in adulthood.  For example, a <a href="http://philpapers.org/rec/ARMDTI" rel="nofollow noreferrer">study published in 1997</a> summarizes the dubious state of the research at the time as follows:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>In sum, findings to date suggest three possible developmental paths of
  moral reasoning development in adulthood: (1) a plateau effect in
  adulthood; (2) ongoing development throughout adulthood; or (3)
  on-going development in earlier adult-hood with decline in later
  adulthood.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Results of that particular study are depicted in the image below:
<img src="https://i.sstatic.net/aklct.png" alt="enter image description here"></p>

<p>As you can see, it's not really that clear what happens in later adulthood, but it doesn't seem to be much different from early adulthood.</p>

<p><strong>Moral Sensitivity:</strong></p>

<p>From <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_reasoning" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Wikipedia</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>... moral sensitivity ... is "the ability to see an ethical dilemma,
  including how our actions will affect others."</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Research on moral sensitivity is much more recent.  Even in his early works, Piaget was aware of this effect on moral judgement task performance.  In the original paradigm, very young children were asked questions like "should a child who accidentally broke 15 cups while washing the dishes be punished more than a child who accidentally broke 1 cup while stealing a cookie".  Although the children were often aware that stealing a cookie is wrong and washing dishes is not, the large amount of damage caused would outweigh that due to its emotional impact on the child.  By around age 8 or 9 however, children understand that the amount of harm is not a relevant factor - only the intention is.</p>

<p>However, later research suggested that moral sensitivity is still correlated with emotion much later in life.  By adolescence, this emotional reaction no longer affects moral judgements, but it continues to impact other aspects of moral reasoning such as deserved punishment.  An early <a href="http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/45370" rel="nofollow noreferrer">attempt to measure sensitivity</a> (2001) used the speed of word associations as an indirect indicator, and found no significant difference between the performance of younger and older adults once the age-related decrease in overall performance was taken into account.</p>

<p>Modern research on moral sensitivity uses fMRI to detect changes in activity in areas of the brain associated with emotion (limbic system) and moral reasoning (prefrontal cortex).  This approach is relatively new, and still fairly expensive, so sample sizes tend to be small.  <a href="http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/05/26/cercor.bhr111.full" rel="nofollow noreferrer">The study cited in the question</a> also concludes, as is well established, that:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>... judgments about how wrong an action was did not differ significantly
  by age</p>
</blockquote>

<p>but as for moral sensitivity:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>... with increasing age, subjects reported feeling less upset when viewing
  objects being damaged ... With age, agents were rated as even more
  mean if they had harmed a person intentionally than if they had harmed
  a person accidentally ... with increasing age, participants were less
  willing to punish agents who intentionally damaged objects than those
  who intentionally harmed people ... Comparison across the three groups
  showed a significant difference ... between the early childhood group
  and the adult group in the connectivity between the vmPFC and amygdala
  reflecting increased functional integration between these 2 regions in
  adults.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>It would certainly be interesting to see how these results extend to later adulthood - ie, if they continue in a linear fashion, or taper off as in moral judgement scores.</p>

<p>Most modern research on older adults focuses on the effects of brain damage (eg, <a href="http://www.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/~bradd/ftd/social/lough_neuropsychologia_2006.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">2006</a>, <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0896627310001728" rel="nofollow noreferrer">2010</a>, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3234136/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">2010</a>), which is naturally more common with age.  When compared with same-age controls, patients with damage to the prefrontal cortex perform worse on a variety of moral judgement tasks.  Degradation in brain function may be responsible for a decline in moral sensitivity with age in some cases.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-04-15T16:00:28.153Z
You're a regular bounty hunter, Arnon. ;)
Christian Hummeluhr
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-04-15T19:03:03.400Z
Yep, bounties are the best questions. :-) I actually wrote a paper on moral judgement in university (dug up my old file for this answer), so this was a fun question to take on.
Arnon Weinberg
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-04-15T22:47:04.513Z
It's a fair comment.  There are many other factors that affect scores on morality tests besides age, including education, culture, and "moral events".  However, the OP's question was about the effect of age only.  Moral development is far too broad a topic to cover it all here, so I suggest that any questions about other factors go in a separate question.
Arnon Weinberg
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-04-15T22:52:56.593Z
Also note that the authors of the McDonald & Stuart-Hamilton (1996) study admit that the results may be affected by cultural change: "It is possible that older adults may have scored highly as in terms of age cohort they are closer to Piaget's generation of subjects tested than are the younger subjects who completed this study."  The Armon & Dawson (1997) study however, tested subjects in the same culture over a 13-year period, controlling for most other variables.
Arnon Weinberg
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-04-18T12:23:37.173Z
I believe what @caseyr547 is writing here is definitely a valid concern. I think the only way to measure any changes accurately enough would be through a longitudinal study of the same individuals (although that does not solve all problems). But I am still going to award the bounty for this answer.
Sid
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-04-15T10:58:39.160Z
2015-04-15T10:58:39.160Z
Arnon Weinberg
<p>There have been numerous studies that compare the moral judgment/sensitivity of adults and children (a good example is <a href="http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/05/26/cercor.bhr111.full" rel="nofollow">this paper</a> by Decety, Michalska and Kinzler, showing significant differences between the moral judgments of each group). However, I am curious if there exist any similar studies for older adults. For example, is there any significant difference between the moral sensitivity of adults over 60-70 and younger adults?</p>

<cognitive-psychology><reference-request><moral-psychology>
How do moral judgments change for older adults?
Sid
# How do moral judgments change for older adults?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2015-04-11)

There have been numerous studies that compare the moral judgment/sensitivity of adults and children (a good example is [this paper](http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/05/26/cercor.bhr111.full) by Decety, Michalska and Kinzler, showing significant differences between the moral judgments of each group). However, I am curious if there exist any similar studies for older adults. For example, is there any significant difference between the moral sensitivity of adults over 60-70 and younger adults?

**Tags:** cognitive-psychology, reference-request, moral-psychology


---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2015-04-15. Score: 6

**Moral Judgement:**

From [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_reasoning):

> ... moral judgment ... is "the ability to reason correctly about what
> 'ought' to be done in a specific situation."

Research on moral judgement was pioneered by [Jean Piaget](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Piaget#Education:_Morality), summarized in his book "The Moral Judgment of the Child" (1932), in which he implies that moral development levels off in adolescence. Piaget introduced the standard [moral judgement task](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg%27s_stages_of_moral_development) paradigm that is still often used today to assess moral development by asking subjects to make moral judgements on particular [stories or dilemmas](http://alevelpsychology.co.uk/?q=piagets-theory-moral-development). In his research, peak performance on these tests was achieved around mid-adolescence, and he never bothered to test older subjects. Interestingly, performance of older adults was only finally [put to the test](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8921148) in 1996. This study showed that (a) moral development does not peak in adolescence, as adults perform slightly better, and (b) older adults do not differ much in overall performance than younger adults, but the details are mixed - in some areas of morality they perform better and in others worse.

Beginning in the 1960's, Piaget's work was extended by other researchers such as [Kohlberg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg) and [Gilligan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Gilligan) to include moral development throughout people's entire life-span. This spurred much research on moral development in adulthood. For example, a [study published in 1997](http://philpapers.org/rec/ARMDTI) summarizes the dubious state of the research at the time as follows:

> In sum, findings to date suggest three possible developmental paths of
> moral reasoning development in adulthood: (1) a plateau effect in
> adulthood; (2) ongoing development throughout adulthood; or (3)
> on-going development in earlier adult-hood with decline in later
> adulthood.

Results of that particular study are depicted in the image below:
![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/aklct.png)

As you can see, it's not really that clear what happens in later adulthood, but it doesn't seem to be much different from early adulthood.

**Moral Sensitivity:**

From [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_reasoning):

> ... moral sensitivity ... is "the ability to see an ethical dilemma,
> including how our actions will affect others."

Research on moral sensitivity is much more recent. Even in his early works, Piaget was aware of this effect on moral judgement task performance. In the original paradigm, very young children were asked questions like "should a child who accidentally broke 15 cups while washing the dishes be punished more than a child who accidentally broke 1 cup while stealing a cookie". Although the children were often aware that stealing a cookie is wrong and washing dishes is not, the large amount of damage caused would outweigh that due to its emotional impact on the child. By around age 8 or 9 however, children understand that the amount of harm is not a relevant factor - only the intention is.

However, later research suggested that moral sensitivity is still correlated with emotion much later in life. By adolescence, this emotional reaction no longer affects moral judgements, but it continues to impact other aspects of moral reasoning such as deserved punishment. An early [attempt to measure sensitivity](http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/45370) (2001) used the speed of word associations as an indirect indicator, and found no significant difference between the performance of younger and older adults once the age-related decrease in overall performance was taken into account.

Modern research on moral sensitivity uses fMRI to detect changes in activity in areas of the brain associated with emotion (limbic system) and moral reasoning (prefrontal cortex). This approach is relatively new, and still fairly expensive, so sample sizes tend to be small. [The study cited in the question](http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/05/26/cercor.bhr111.full) also concludes, as is well established, that:

> ... judgments about how wrong an action was did not differ significantly
> by age

but as for moral sensitivity:

> ... with increasing age, subjects reported feeling less upset when viewing
> objects being damaged ... With age, agents were rated as even more
> mean if they had harmed a person intentionally than if they had harmed
> a person accidentally ... with increasing age, participants were less
> willing to punish agents who intentionally damaged objects than those
> who intentionally harmed people ... Comparison across the three groups
> showed a significant difference ... between the early childhood group
> and the adult group in the connectivity between the vmPFC and amygdala
> reflecting increased functional integration between these 2 regions in
> adults.

It would certainly be interesting to see how these results extend to later adulthood - ie, if they continue in a linear fashion, or taper off as in moral judgement scores.

Most modern research on older adults focuses on the effects of brain damage (eg, [2006](http://www.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/~bradd/ftd/social/lough_neuropsychologia_2006.pdf), [2010](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0896627310001728), [2010](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3234136/)), which is naturally more common with age. When compared with same-age controls, patients with damage to the prefrontal cortex perform worse on a variety of moral judgement tasks. Degradation in brain function may be responsible for a decline in moral sensitivity with age in some cases.

> **Comments:**
> **username_2**: You're a regular bounty hunter, Arnon. ;)  
> **username_1**: Yep, bounties are the best questions. :-) I actually wrote a paper on moral judgement in university (dug up my old file for this answer), so this was a fun question to take on.  
> **username_1**: It's a fair comment.  There are many other factors that affect scores on morality tests besides age, including education, culture, and "moral events".  However, the OP's question was about the effect of age only.  Moral development is far too broad a topic to cover it all here, so I suggest that any questions about other factors go in a separate question.  
> **username_1**: Also note that the authors of the McDonald & Stuart-Hamilton (1996) study admit that the results may be affected by cultural change: "It is possible that older adults may have scored highly as in terms of age cohort they are closer to Piaget's generation of subjects tested than are the younger subjects who completed this study."  The Armon & Dawson (1997) study however, tested subjects in the same culture over a 13-year period, controlling for most other variables.  
> **username_0**: I believe what @caseyr547 is writing here is definitely a valid concern. I think the only way to measure any changes accurately enough would be through a longitudinal study of the same individuals (although that does not solve all problems). But I am still going to award the bounty for this answer.  

---

