Older people are perceived as more moral than younger people: data from seven culturally diverse countries

ABSTRACT

Given the adage “older and wiser,” it seems justified to assume that older people may be stereotyped as more moral than younger people. We aimed to study whether assessments of a person’s morality differ depending on their age. We asked 661 individuals from seven societies (Australians, Britons, Burusho of Pakistan, Canadians, Dani of Papua, New Zealanders, and Poles) whether younger (~20-year-old), middle-aged (~40-year-old), or older (~60-year-old) people were more likely to behave morally and have a sense of right and wrong. We observed that older people were perceived as more moral than younger people. The effect was particularly salient when comparing 20-year-olds to either 40- or 60-year-olds and was culturally universal, as we found it in both WEIRD (i.e. Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) and non-WEIRD societies.

KEYWORDS:

• Morality
• moral perception
• age
• cross-cultural moral judgment
• non-WEIRD sample

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10508422.2023.2248327.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Polish National Science Centre (SONATA BIS grant 2014/14/E/HS6/00368).