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

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Ethics & Behavior
ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hebh20
Older people are perceived as more moral than
younger people: data from seven culturally diverse
countries
Piotr Sorokowski, Marta Kowal, Sadiq Hussain, Rashid Ali Haideri, Michał
Misiak, Kiriakos Chatzipentidis, Mehmet Kibris Mahmut, W.P. Malecki, Jakub
Dąbrowski, Tomasz Frackowiak, Anna Bartkowiak, Agnieszka Sorokowska &
Mariola Paruzel-Czachura
To cite this article: Piotr Sorokowski, Marta Kowal, Sadiq Hussain, Rashid Ali Haideri, Michał
Misiak, Kiriakos Chatzipentidis, Mehmet Kibris Mahmut, W.P. Malecki, Jakub Dąbrowski, Tomasz
Frackowiak, Anna Bartkowiak, Agnieszka Sorokowska & Mariola Paruzel-Czachura (2023): Older
people are perceived as more moral than younger people: data from seven culturally diverse
countries, Ethics & Behavior, DOI: 10.1080/10508422.2023.2248327
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10508422.2023.2248327
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Older people are perceived as more moral than younger people:
data from seven culturally diverse countries
Piotr Sorokowski
a
, Marta Kowal
b
, Sadiq Hussain
c
, Rashid Ali Haideri
d,e
,
Michał Misiak
b
, Kiriakos Chatzipentidis
a
, Mehmet Kibris Mahmut
f
, W.P. Malecki
g
,
Jakub Dąbrowski
a
, Tomasz Frackowiak
a
, Anna Bartkowiak
h
, Agnieszka Sorokowska
a
,
and Mariola Paruzel-Czachura
i,j
a
Institute of Psychology, University of Wrocław, Poland;
b
Being Human Lab, University of Wrocław, Poland;
c
Department of Psychology & Human Development, Karakoram International University, Pakistan;
d
Department of
Behavioral Sciences, Karakorum International University, Pakistan;
e
School of Social and Political Sciences, The
University of Melbourne, Australia;
f
Food, Flavour and Fragrance Lab, School of Psychological Sciences, Macquarie
University, Australia;
g
Institute of Polish Studies, University of Wrocław, Poland;
h
Department of Statistics and
Operations Research, University of Wrocław, Poland;
i
Institute of Psychology, University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland;
j
Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics, ChatLab, University of Pennsylvania, the United States
ABSTRACT
Given the adage “older and wiser,” it seems justied 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 dier 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 eect was particularly salient when compar-
ing 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
Ever since the early works of philosophers such as Hume (1777/1960), it has been hypothesized that
people have an intuitive knowledge enabling them to form moral judgments and make moral decisions
(Doris, 2010). These early theories have been further developed by contemporary thinkers, including
social intuitionists (Graham & Haidt, 2012; Graham et al., 2018; Haidt, 2001). Haidt and colleagues’
model and other empirical research (e.g., Batson et al., 1999; Van Berkum et al., 2009) indicate that
intuitive and emotional reactions may aid the overall assessments of what is right and what is wrong.
Moreover, morality is one of the core traits of interest we assess when meeting a new person
(Brambilla et al., 2011, 2021; Goodwin, 2015; Goodwin et al., 2014; Landy et al., 2018; Melnikoff &
Bailey, 2018), while moral character is the most important factor in forming the overall impression of
others (Goodwin, 2015; Wojciszke et al., 1998). Consequently, it can be assumed that intuitive
reactions may also drive the rough impressions of other people’s morality based on very limited
information about them.
Research suggests that a short interaction with or a glance at another person is enough to
form certain impressions about their characteristics (e.g., Groyecka et al., 2017). For instance,
CONTACT Mariola Paruzel-Czachura mariola.paruzel-czachura@us.edu.pl Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics, ChatLab,
University of Pennsylvania, 3710 Hamilton Walk, Goddard Laboratories, Room 332, Pennsylvania, PA 19104, US
All data and materials are available at https://osf.io/mrynj/.
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10508422.2023.2248327.
ETHICS & BEHAVIOR
https://doi.org/10.1080/10508422.2023.2248327
© 2023 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

viewing a face photograph is sufficient to form an impression of a person’s trustworthiness,
abilities, and personality traits (Ballew & Todorov, 2007; Mileva et al., 2014; Třebický et al.,
2013; Winston et al., 2002). Moreover, recent studies showed that people perceived as more
physically attractive are judged as more moral than those perceived as less attractive (Cui et al.,
2019; Langlois et al., 2000; Workman et al., 2021). Lin et al. (2018) found that observers could
accurately assess who of the people depicted in photographs was convicted of political corrup-
tion (Porter et al., 2008). These findings are consistent with social intuitionist theory (Graham &
Haidt, 2012; Haidt, 2001) and research showing that moral judgments are fast and intuitive
(Graham & Haidt, 2012; Haidt, 2001; Hume, 1960/1977). Nevertheless, we still need more
studies to understand which factors contribute to the perceived and intuitively assessed morality
of newly acquainted strangers. In this study, we sought to make a step in that direction by
investigating whether old age might be one such factor, as suggested by the well-known cultural
associations between morality and old age that can be observed in language (e.g., the adage “the
older the wiser”), religion, literature, and art (Collins, 1997; Jeste & Vahia, 2008; Staudinger,
2008).
Specifically, we explored whether being older was associated with behaving more morally and
possessing more knowledge about how to behave morally. Since WEIRD (Western, Educated,
Industrialized, Rich, Democratic; Henrich et al., 2010) and non-WEIRD societies have been shown
to differ significantly in their perceptions of old age (Diamond, 2012; Selin & Selin (Ed.), 2021;
Sorokowski et al., 2017, 2022), we sought to increase the cultural universalizability of our results by
conducting the study with both WEIRD and non-WEIRD participants from seven different societies:
Australians, Britons, Burusho of Pakistan, Canadians, Dani of Papua, New Zealanders, and Poles.
WHY ARE OLDER PEOPLE SEEN AS MORE MORAL?
One line of research shows that older people are assessed differently from younger people. For
example, several studies demonstrated that people are more likely to forgive social transgressions
and less likely to attribute guilt to older than younger people (e.g., Blanchard-Fields et al., 1999; Miller
et al., 2009). Additionally, observers attribute the wrongdoings of older people to their declining
cognitive abilities, while the wrongdoings of younger individuals are attributed to their hostile
intentions or disregard of social norms (Blanchard-Fields et al., 1999; Erber & Long, 2006).
Consequently, people tend to be more benevolent when judging the transgressions of older offenders
compared to younger ones (Erber & Long, 2006; Erber et al., 2001). These findings are consistent with
the research on age-related stereotypes and ageism (North & Fiske, 2012, 2015). For instance, older
people are stereotyped as incompetent but warmer. “Warmer” may also imply “more moral” as
morality is a central component of psychological warmth (Fiske et al., 2007; Wojciszke, 2005).
Given that aging may also be associated with an increase in positive traits such as wisdom and
generosity (Nelson, 2002), it is plausible to assume that older individuals may also be perceived as
more moral.
When making judgments about older individuals, people may also base them on observing how
older people behave in general. There are a few well-documented types of changes when people get
old. For instance, even the earliest developmental psychology research suggests that morality develops
with age (Kohlberg, 1969; Piaget, 1932/65), associating higher cognitive abilities with getting older. It
should be noted here, however, that this positive correlation between age and moral development has
sometimes been described as linear, with older people being more developed morally (McDonald &
Stuart-Hamilton, 1996), and sometimes as non-linear, with morality increasing with age until a certain
point and decreasing in older age (Armon & Dawson, 1997; Bielby & Papalia, 1975; Chen &
Blanchard-Fields, 2000; Ligneau-Herve & Mullet, 2005). Those changes have also been explained by
changes in cognitive abilities (e.g., Henry et al., 2013).
Moreover, assessments of the overall morality of older adults may be based on observations of their
behavior in specific domains, for instance those related to empathy. Researchers point out that apart
2S. PIOTR ET AL.

from cognitive abilities, an important factor in moral judgment is empathy (Decety & Cowell, 2014b,
2014a; Gleichgerrcht et al., 2013; Gruen, 2015; Zaki, 2018, Hume, 1779). Studies on empathy report
that it increases with age, not only among children (McDonald & Messinger, 2011) but also among
adults (Sze et al., 2012). Specifically, the emotional component of empathy is in some cases found to be
higher among older people than younger adults.
Lastly, when making judgments about older adults, individuals may consider the well-known fact
that older people make different moral judgments than younger people (Krettenauer et al., 2016). They
differ, for example, in how they solve utilitarian (Bentham & Goldworth, 1983; Mill, 1863) and
deontological (Kant, 1895/ 1949) moral dilemmas (Margoni et al., 2018; McNair et al., 2018; Moran
et al., 2012) and in how they think about justice (McDonald & Stuart-Hamilton, 1996). These
observations may serve as additional clues to individuals when they judge others’ morality.
THE CURRENT RESEARCH
In light of the above, we hypothesized that the assessment of a person’s morality may be influenced by
their perceived age. It is well-established that people tend to form stereotypical beliefs based on
associations and interrelationships they observe in their daily lives (Rosch & Lloyd, 1978) and then
apply these stereotypes in their subsequent interactions, including those involving older people (North
& Fiske, 2012, 2015).
Hence, our hypothesis is centered around the potential impact of age-related differences in moral
development and moral judgment on intuitive assessments of others’ morality. We anticipated that
these assessments might be influenced by a stereotypical association between age and perceived moral
qualities. More precisely, we posited that older individuals would tend to be stereotyped as possessing
higher levels of morality compared to middle-aged and younger individuals.
According to social intuitionist theory (Haidt, 2001), morality is grounded in intuitions that
evolved as adaptations to challenges prevalent in human evolution while also being influenced by
environmental and cultural factors. The idea of cultural factors and socialization shaping moral
development or moral judgment is common and mentioned in other theories as well (e.g., Shweder
et al., 1997). It has also been supported by recent empirical research worldwide (Awad et al., 2020;
Bago et al., 2022). Therefore, studying moral judgment across cultures is essential to fully understand
whether the effect hypothesized above is specific to a particular culture or more universal, especially in
light of the current replication crisis in psychology (Maxwell et al., 2015; Simonsohn, 2015).
On the one hand, we may expect that the described effect will be consistent across all cultures,
similar to findings from previous cultural studies on moral judgments (e.g., Awad et al., 2020; Bago
et al., 2022). On the other hand, we may also anticipate cultural differences in perceptions of morality
depending on the assessed person’s age. Some researchers have highlighted that culture plays a role in
shaping moral judgments (Smith & Apicella, 2022; Sorokowski et al., 2020; Turpin et al., 2021;
Winking et al., 2021). Moreover, past studies showed that older adults are valued and respected in
traditional societies more than in non-traditional societies (Diamond, 2012; Sorokowski et al., 2017;
Werner, 1981). It could be assumed that in traditional societies, where older individuals serve as judges
and mediators and transfer group-based knowledge (Diamond, 2012), the morality of older indivi-
duals may be perceived as higher than in industrialized cultures. Therefore, we decided to test our
hypothesis in seven countries, including two non-WEIRD indigenous societies (i.e., Burusho and
Dani). Additionally, we chose to control the target’s gender, as past research has indicated differences
in morality between women and men (see, e.g., Paruzel-Czachura & Blukacz, 2021; Shang et al., 2020).
Finally, in our study, we distinguish between two types of morality: descriptive and normative, as is
common in the literature (Gert & Gert, 2020). We define descriptive morality as codes of conduct put
forward by a society or a group, while normative morality as a code of conduct that, given specified
conditions, would be put forward by all rational people. This approach is consistent with folk theories
about morality. A study showed that when participants were asked about what morality is, their
responses primarily focused on moral behavior, followed by moral knowledge about what is right and
ETHICS & BEHAVIOR 3

wrong (Paruzel-Czachura, 2016). Furthermore, when participants were asked to assess an agent’s
morality, they predominantly considered the agent’s behaviors (Allison et al., 1996; Baron & Hershey,
1988; Gino et al., 2009; Hastie & Dawes, 2001), as well as the agent’s moral beliefs (e.g., Paruzel-
Czachura & Białek, 2022; Uhlmann et al., 2014, 2015). In conclusion, it is strongly recommended to
incorporate various manifestations of morality in empirical research (e.g., Dahl, 2023; Malle, 2021;
Paruzel-Czachura, 2023). Our study follows this approach by testing both descriptive and normative
morality.
Method
The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Institute of Psychology at the University of
Wrocław.
Transparency and openness
We report how we determined our sample size, all data exclusions, all manipulations, and all measures
in the study, and we follow Journal Article Reporting Standards (Kazak, 2018). All data are available at
https://osf.io/mrynj/. This study’s design and its analysis were not pre-registered. Data were analyzed
using JAMOVI (2.0.0).
Participants
We recruited 665 individuals. However, four of them did not disclose their gender and were therefore
excluded from further analyses. The final sample consisted of 661 participants (43% men, M
age
= 39.82,
SD
age
= 13.68) from seven populations (i.e., Australians n = 102, Britons n = 105, Burusho in Pakistan
n = 70, Canadians n = 100, Dani of Papua in Indonesia n = 60, New Zealanders n = 100, Poles n = 124).
All participants agreed to take part in the study voluntarily. Detailed descriptive statistics across
societies are presented in Table S1 in the Supplementary Materials.
We started data collection in person, and three samples were gathered this way (Burusho, Dani, and
Britons). Specifically, Britons and Burusho were approached by a native-speaking interviewer, while
Dani were approached by an interviewer accompanied by a local interpreter. Because of the COVID-
19 pandemic, we finished data collection of four samples (Australians, New Zealanders, and
Canadians in English and Poles in Polish) online via Qualtrics. All participants received monetary
compensation for taking part in the study. The main characteristics of Western countries where the
research was carried out are common knowledge in the literature. That is why we only describe the
specificities of the indigenous communities. The Burusho people live in Pakistan in the mountainous
regions of Hunza and Nagar and the valleys of Gilgit – Baltistan, where the data for this study was
collected. The Burusho work in agriculture and are involved in livestock production. A more detailed
description of this community can be found in the literature (e.g., Dinar & Chaudhry, 1996).
The Dani people live in the central highlands of Western Papua (a province of Indonesia). The
study was conducted in Baliem Valley, in local villages around Wamena. Life in these villages is
fundamentally different from life in an industrialized society. For example, there is no electricity,
running water, or other modern amenities. They can be described as horticulturalists. Due to the
remote location of their dwellings, the Dani have little contact with Western culture. A more detailed
description of this community can be found in the literature (e.g., Sabiniewicz et al., 2020).
Procedure
Participants were informed that they would see drawings of three people of different ages and
asked to select one of the three pictures as their response to each question (Figure 1). Each
picture presented a schematic face (customized for a particular society) of a younger (approxi-
mately 20 years old), middle-aged (approximately 40 years old), and older person (approxi-
mately 60 years old). Two sets of faces were presented, one for women and one for men. The
age of each target face was provided simultaneously – the sketches were not designed to guess
4S. PIOTR ET AL.

their age but to facilitate the task and simplify the study procedure. We decided to use
sketches instead of photographs as we aimed to only treat them as additional stimuli to the
information about someone’s age, and we wanted to avoid participants focusing on the not
necessary details of the evaluated person’s face, which could happen if we used photographs.
Exemplary target faces are presented in Figure 1 (all faces in Figure S1 in the Supplementary
Material).
We tested participants’ morality judgments based on answers to two questions (related to two
definitions of morality: descriptive and normative): (1) who behaves morally (“Who is most
likely to follow the rules/norms regarding what is right or wrong in your society?”), and (2) who
knows what is moral (“Who knows best what is right or wrong in your society?’). Participants
answered the morality questions twice, once while viewing the faces of men and once while
viewing the faces of women. Half of the participants first answered the morality questions having
to choose between the faces of men and then between the faces of women, while the presentation
was reversed for the other half of the participants. The question order was also counter-balanced
(i.e., if a participant answered a question on moral behavior first when choosing between faces of
women, they received a question on moral knowledge first when choosing between faces
of men).
Statistical analyses
To test our hypothesis that the oldest individuals would be considered the most moral, we compared
the percentages of responses in three categories: younger, middle-aged, and older. Next, we examined
whether there were any differences in the likelihood of choosing each face (i.e., younger, middle-aged,
or older) when participants answered the question about moral behavior or moral knowledge. We
considered factors such as the gender of the face (women/men), the participant’s gender, age, and
society, using multinomial generalized linear models. We initially included three-way interactions,
followed by two-way interactions, and finally, only the main effects. To determine which model better
Figure 1. Exemplary stimuli with the faces of three women and three men presented to participants from the Burusho society.
ETHICS & BEHAVIOR 5

fit the data, we applied the commonly used Bayesian Inclusion Criterion (i.e., ΔBIC > 10; Raftery,
1999). Additionally, we conducted post-hoc tests with Bonferroni corrections across variables of
interest to further examine the results.
RESULTS
The results of the percentage comparison test revealed that there were significant differences across the
proportions of the three age categories (χ
2
= 345.483, df = 2, p < .001). Older individuals were chosen
the most frequently (45.5%, p < .001), then were the middle-aged individuals (37.5%, p < .001), while
the youngest individuals were chosen the least frequently (17%, p < .001). See Figure 2 for a visual
presentation of the differences across the three age categories.
Next, we proceeded with multinomial generalized linear models to test for the links between the
dependent variable (i.e., morality ratings) and variables of interest, namely participants’ age, partici-
pants’ gender, dichotomous (i.e., WEIRD vs. non-WEIRD) and detailed (i.e., Australians, Britons,
Burusho, Canadians, Dani, New Zealanders, Poles) type of the society, gender of the individual that
was judged (men or women), and morality type (i.e., moral behavior or moral knowledge). Based on
Figure 2. Frequencies of choosing each person (either younger, middle-aged, or older) on four questions about morality across the
Whole Dataset (N = 661), with error Bars Representing 95% Confidence Intervals. Note: ***p < .001.
Table 1. Results of the log-likelihood ratio tests with the multinomial dependent
variable (i.e., either younger, middle-aged, or older person chosen as more
moral).
Predictor X
2
df p
Participants’ Age 48.967 2 <.001***
Participants’ Gender
a
7.333 2 .026*
Society
b
36.394 12 <.001***
WEIRD or Non-WEIRD
c
0.000 2 .999
Gender of Judged Face
d
0.076 2 .963
Type of Morality
e
8.451 2 .015*
a
Men or Women;
b
Australians, Britons, Burusho, Canadians, Dani, New
Zealanders, Poles;
c
WEIRD or Non-WEIRD society;
d
Either male faces or female
faces;
e
Either moral behavior or moral knowledge. *p < .05, **p < .01. ***p
< .001.
6S. PIOTR ET AL.

the BIC, the model without interactions showed a superior fit compared to the other models (ΔBIC =
60 between the first and third models; ΔBIC = 30 between the second and third models). Hence, herein
we report the results of the model that best fits the data (the one with the main effects only).
The results of the final multinomial generalized linear model are presented in Table 1. The
likelihood of selecting each age category (i.e., younger, middle-aged, or older) differed
depending on the participants’ age, gender, type of morality, and society. Detailed results of
the post hoc comparisons (with the Bonferroni correction) are presented in the Supplementary
Material. Here, we briefly present the main results. The older a participant was, the more
likely were they to choose the older person as the most moral (Figure S1). Women were more
likely than men to choose the older person as the most moral (Table S2). Older individuals
were more frequently rated as knowing what is moral rather than as behaving morally (Table
S3). Interestingly, there were variations across different societies: older individuals were less
frequently chosen as the most moral in Great Britain compared to Canada, New Zealand, and
Burusho people. In contrast, middle-aged individuals were more frequently chosen as the most
moral among the Dani compared to Canada and New Zealand. However, the likelihood of
choosing the youngest person as the most moral remained similar across all societies (see
Table S4 and Figure 3). The type of society (i.e., WEIRD vs. non-WEIRD) and gender of the
judged face were not significantly related to the outcome variable. Furthermore, we have
tested whether the type of sketches (adjusted to societies, see Figure S1), administration
method (online vs in-person), or language were related to the morality ratings, but we did
not find any evidence for that (see Tables S5-S7). We have also explored whether in-group
favoritism could be responsible for the positive relationship between participants’ age and
morality ratings. To test that, we have split participants’ age into three categories, correspond-
ing to the stimuli: younger (up to 35 years old), middle-aged (between 35 and 55), and older
(more than 55). To support the in-group favoritism hypothesis, we would expect to observe
that younger individuals preferred their own group category, that is, younger stimuli, over
middle and older-aged stimuli, and middle-aged participants preferred their own group
category, that is, middle-aged stimuli, over older individuals. However, we did not find
Figure 3. The odds ratio of choosing each person (either younger, middle-aged, or older) across seven countries, with error bars
showing 95% confidence intervals.
ETHICS & BEHAVIOR 7

evidence for that (see Tables S8-S9). Thus, in-group favoritism is likely not responsible for the
observed positive relationship between morality ratings and age.
In the final step, we run a sensitivity power analysis (Faul et al., 2009). Using G*Power, we
estimated that with our sample (N = 661), we were able to detect even small effect sizes (f
2
= .02)
with power .80 and an alpha level of .05.
DISCUSSION
Our study supports the previously unexplored hypothesis that older people are perceived as more
moral than younger people. The effect was particularly salient when the frequency of choosing 20-year
-olds as most moral was compared with the frequency of choosing either t 40- or 60-year-olds. The
observed effect appears to be culturally universal as it was demonstrated in five WEIRD, culturally
diverse countries, as well as in non-WEIRD societies from Papua and Pakistan. Interestingly, despite
the prominent role and social position of older adults in non-industrialized societies (Diamond, 2012;
Sorokowski et al., 2017; Werner, 1981), we found that in the non-industrialized societies in our
sample, perceived morality was associated with the age of the assessed persons to the same degree as in
the industrialized countries. However, it should be highlighted that the Burusho (Pakistan) and
Britons (United Kingdom) indicated the middle-aged person as the most moral.
Moreover, we observed some interesting additional results. First, the older a participant was, the
more likely they chose an older person as the most moral. This result is consistent with the line of
research highlighting that we generally value people who are more similar to us (Alves et al., 2016)
from the first days we are born (Mahajan & Wynn, 2012). Second, women were more likely than men
to choose an older person as the most moral. Further studies are needed to gain a deeper under-
standing of this phenomenon. Past research already provided evidence that many gender differences
regarding moral judgment can be observed worldwide (Atari et al., 2020). Furthermore, women
generally have higher expectations of moral identity compared to men (Paruzel-Czachura &
Blukacz, 2021; Shang et al., 2020). They also have higher levels of empathy (Baez et al., 2017;
Toussaint & Webb, 2005) and sensitivity to harm (Atari et al., 2020; Koleva et al., 2012). Although
the differences we observed are consistent with these studies, we need more research to understand the
mechanism behind this effect. We hypothesize that higher levels of empathy among women and older
people may be contributing to this effect. However, since we did not measure this variable, we were
unable to test this hypothesis. Future researchers could also include in their studies the perception of
different traits of older people, such as wisdom, deliberateness, and judiciousness, or even secondary
variables like socioeconomic status (Durante et al., 2017). Third, older individuals were more
frequently rated as knowing what is moral than behaving morally. This result aligns with the research
related to moral hypocrisy. We already know that people are better at knowing what should be done
from a moral point of view than at actually doing it (Batson et al., 1999; Valdesolo & DeSteno, 2007).
Our results further support this pattern, also among older people (as perceived by our participants).
Fourth, older individuals were less frequently chosen as the most moral in Great Britain than in
Canada, New Zealand, and Burusho people; middle-aged individuals were more frequently chosen as
the most moral in Dani than in Canada and New Zealand. Those cultural differences in morality
judgments could be explained in many ways, for example, by differences in the tightness – looseness
cultural construct (Jiang et al., 2015; Uz, 2015). Tighter cultures focus more on clear group values and
norms, and there is little acceptance of norm violations. On the other hand, culturally loose societies
are more tolerant of moral deviations as values and norms are not so clearly defined there (Uz, 2015).
Great Britain is a looser culture, so maybe that is why we observed such differences. Further research is
needed to test for the influence of other cultural factors, such as power distance (Hofstede, 2001). Fifth,
the likelihood of choosing the youngest person as the most moral was similar across all societies. This
result is consistent with the theory about the cultural universality of moral values (Kinnier et al., 2000;
Schwartz, 2007).
8S. PIOTR ET AL.

The current findings are an interesting addition to studies investigating perceptions of morality but
also relate to more general psychological mechanisms, such as assessments of others and decision-
making (Hastie & Dawes, 2001). For example, previous studies have shown that people judge the
perpetrations of younger individuals more harshly than those of older people performing the same act
(Chu & Grühn, 2018). Our study suggests that one possible reason for such age-related differences
might be the perception of younger people as less moral than older people. Another type of research
related to our findings is analyses of political elections. Our data support the existence of psychological
biases in favor of older people, as older age was found to be consistently related to greater morality,
regardless of the gender of the assessed individual. This effect may explain the preference to choose
older individuals as political leaders (Magni-Berton & Panel, 2021).
Regarding the current study’s limitations, the selected samples were not representative, and the
number of non-industrialized countries was lower than that of industrialized countries. However, we
observed that older age was associated with perceived morality in a relatively large and culturally diverse
sample. This is a significant advantage compared to many studies on social perception that often focus on
one, usually WEIRD, sample. Future research that includes more participants from non-industrialized
societies and explores further why younger people are judged more harshly for the same act than older
people would help further our understanding of the impact of age on perceived morality. Moreover,
more research is needed to understand the mechanism behind the positive relationship between age and
morality judgments. Given that our research has practical implications for social perception, including
stereotypes (North & Fiske, 2012, 2015), further studies are needed to explore the relationship between
age and perceived morality. Moreover, some additional traits of our study procedure could impact our
results. When comparing findings across different societies, we used different sketches, administration
methods (online, in person), and languages for each society. This is a significant methodological
limitation of the findings, and caution should be exercised when interpreting them. However, we
conducted additional analyses and compared participants from online vs. in-person samples and
English-speaking vs. non-English-speaking participants from WEIRD societies. The pattern of results
remained the same (see Tables S5-S7 in Supplementary Materials). We also want to highlight that all
participants were tested in their native language, as we wanted the avoid possible moral foreign language
effects (Białek et al., 2019). Moreover, it is worth noting that our stimuli did not allow us to assess the
impact of additional facial traits on morality perception. For instance, the presence of hair or the size of
eyes could potentially influence morality assessments. For example, our stimuli of old faces consisted of
people with less hair, and men were bolder than younger men. Future studies should consider controlling
for facial details to investigate which facial traits shape moral judgments. Another limitation is that we
did not control if participants were more favorable regarding faces similar to their age. We indeed found
that age positively correlated with seeing older faces as more moral, but we did not gather more age-
balanced samples, which would allow us to conduct more fine-grained analyses to answer the question if
participants were more favorable to faces of their age. Future studies should overcome this limitation.
Moreover, we acknowledge that life expectancy varies across the studied societies. However, we do not
believe this introduced bias to the results because the differences in life expectancy might stem from
higher infant mortality in non-WEIRD societies. Life expectancy for an individual over puberty might be
similar in the countries under investigation (CIA, 2022). Lastly, we want to highlight that the sample size
was small (although sufficient to conduct well-powered statistical analyses). In future studies, it would be
better to increase the sample’s power, which would open new possibilities for data analysis and help us
better understand how age may impact moral impressions.
To sum up, our research demonstrates that, for most participants, older people were stereo-
typed as more moral than younger people. This result appeared both in WEIRD and non-WEIRD
societies. Because morality predominates in social perception (Brambilla et al., 2021), it is essential
that people are aware of these dynamics. Furthermore, such judgments may impact the everyday
life of many people. We make decisions about others’ morality in our workplaces, schools, courts,
or prisons, so we need to know more about why older people are seen as more moral than younger
people.
ETHICS & BEHAVIOR 9

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Funding
This study was supported by the Polish National Science Centre (SONATA BIS grant 2014/14/E/HS6/00368).
ORCID
Piotr Sorokowski http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9225-9965
Marta Kowal http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9050-1471
Sadiq Hussain http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9008-935X
Rashid Ali Haideri http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4275-9985
Michał Misiak http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6892-3325
Kiriakos Chatzipentidis http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7682-4856
Mehmet Kibris Mahmut http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9228-0884
W.P. Malecki http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4768-713X
Tomasz Frackowiak http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0244-2879
Anna Bartkowiak http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2778-6512
Agnieszka Sorokowska http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3999-8851
Mariola Paruzel-Czachura http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8716-9778
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