Are Older Adults More Attuned to Morally Charged Information?

Abstract

Whereas older adults typically show declines in various cognitive processes, they also typically demonstrate greater interest in social relationships. Part of this increased focus on interpersonal relations may extend to morality, which by its very nature is concerned with social contracts, obligations, and the give-and-take among people. The authors tested whether in comparison to younger adults, older adults show increased activation and memory for morally charged information relative to nonmoral information. Three experiments examined older and younger adult comprehension and memory of moral content in stories. Participants read stories and were tested for surface form, textbase, and situation model recognition memory. In contrast to past studies that have not focused on moral content, in this study older adults had textbase memory for moral information equal to that of young adults, suggesting an enhanced attention to morally charged details. To examine online moral inference making, Experiment 2 used lexical decision probes. There was greater facilitation of moral inferences for older adults relative to younger adults, suggesting greater focus of processing on moral content. Experiment 3 explored methodological issues to resolve some discrepancies between the experiments, and replicated the basic findings. In general, older adults had enhanced memory for morally charged story events and, relative to younger adults, were more likely to draw moral inferences during comprehension.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Danielle Danaher, Brittany Gragg, Amanda Mathews, Erica Nason, Jenny Rinehart, and Kaile-Maureen Ross for their assistance in this research.

Notes

Note. Standard deviations are given in parentheses.

Note. Standard deviations are given in parentheses.