Cognitive Development 53 (2020) 100840

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Cognitive Development
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cogdev

The distinction between morality and convention in older adults

T
Francesco Margoni
Department of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, University of Trento, Italy

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: This research examined age-group differences in the tendency to distinguish between morality
Moral judgment and convention. While moral norms derive from universal principles of justice and fairness,
Older adults conventional norms apply locally and are contingent upon rule and authority. Across two studies,
Moral violations young adults, young-old adults and old adults were presented with prototypical cases of moral
Conventional violations
and conventional transgressions, and were asked to evaluate (a) the moral wrongness and pun-
Moral-conventional distinction
ishability of the transgression, and (b) the universal applicability and authority independency of
the norm that was violated. Overall, each age group distinguished between morality and con-
vention. However, compared to young adults, old adults, but not young-old adults, showed re-
liably smaller moral-conventional distinction effects. This age-group difference can be linked to a
greater tendency in older adults to judge conventional transgressions as context and authority
independent.

1. Introduction

According to a rich literature in moral psychology, people distinguish violations of moral norms (hitting another person) from
violations of socio-conventional norms (wearing pajamas to school) along a number of dimensions, such as thinking that moral
violations, unlike conventional violations, are rule and authority independent (e.g., Josephs & Rakoczy, 2016; Nucci, 2001; Nucci &
Turiel, 1978; Smetana, 2006; Smetana, Killen, & Turiel, 1991; Turiel, Killen, & Helwig, 1987). However, despite the fact that the
tendency to distinguish among different kinds of norms has been posited to be a central component of mature moral reasoning, no
research has been conducted with older adult participants.
The line of research that investigates the moral-conventional distinction can be traced back to the work of Elliot Turiel (e.g.,
Turiel, 1983, 2002), and was developed by the social domain theorists (Damon, 1977; Killen & Smetana, 2015; Nucci, 2001;
Richardson, Mulvey, & Killen, 2012; Tisak, 1995). The tasks that have been used presented participants with scenarios illustrating
transgressions of different kinds of norms and social codes, and asked them to judge (a) the wrongness of the actions, (b) how the
rules that have been violated can be justified, and (c) whether the actions would be wrong also in a different cultural context, in the
absence of a rule or if permitted by an authority. Numerous studies gave support to the social domain theory which posited that people
have a basic, universal and early-emerging tendency to think that moral norms, unlike conventional norms, are independent from any
authority jurisdiction or rule, are universally valid, and their violation implies harm (either physical or psychological) and concerns
about welfare of others, justice, fairness and individual rights (e.g., Hollos, Leis, & Turiel, 1986; Kim, 1998; Luapa & Turiel, 1986;
Nisan, 1987; Nucci, Turiel, & Encarnacion-Gawrych, 1983; Song, Smetana, & Kim, 1987; but see also Haidt, Koller, & Dias, 1993;
Kelly, Stich, Haley, Eng, & Fessler, 2007; Nichols, 2004; Shweder, Mahapatra, & Miller, 1987).
So, for example, most children, adolescents and adults would resolutely judge hitting as wrong even if there were rules that
sanctioned it or if some authority gave the permission to hit or, furthermore, if hitting occurred in another country other than their

E-mail address: francesco.margoni@unitn.it.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2019.100840
Received 12 October 2018; Received in revised form 16 November 2019; Accepted 21 November 2019
0885-2014/ © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
F. Margoni Cognitive Development 53 (2020) 100840

own. People seem to reason that harming actions would very likely result in negative consequences such as hurting others or make
them unhappy. By contrast, they would not judge wearing pajamas to school as wrong if the school Principal gave the permission or
there was a rule that sanctioned it. In other words, children and adults from different backgrounds and inserted in different cultural
contexts and societies seem all to link moral rules and principles, but not conventional norms, to concerns for fairness, justice, equity,
individual rights and welfare of others, and view moral principles as independent from cultural or societal norms, group consensus or
authority jurisdiction (Killen & Smetana, 2006; for philosophical work consistent with the view that moral prescriptions are not
specific to a given socio-cultural context, are impartial and centered on individual rights, see Dworkin, 1977; Gewirth, 1978, 1982;
Rawls, 1971, 1993).
Do older adults distinguish between morality and convention? Do they consider the former but not the latter as socially trans-
cendent (i.e., condemnable independently of the social context or the authority’s sanction)? The present research began to answer this
question by assessing differences between younger and older adults in how they judge prototypical moral and conventional viola-
tions.
It must be acknowledged that there is a paucity of literature on older adult moral judgment. However, it has been recently shown
that older adults, unlike younger adults, tend to base their moral judgments on the outcome of agents’ actions rather than on agents’
intentions (Margoni, Geipel, Hadjichristidis, & Surian, 2018; Moran, Jolly, & Mitchell, 2012). So, for example, younger adults would
exculpate cases of accidental harm because the agent did not have negative intentions, whereas older adults would condemn those
cases because their attention would be focused on the presence of negative outcomes rather than on the absence of negative in-
tentions. Although the few cross-sectional studies on older adults cannot exclude the possibility that age-group differences in moral
judgment were due to cohort effects, this same bias in judging based on outcomes has been found in preschoolers by a rich set of
studies (e.g., Cushman, Sheketoff, Wharton, & Carey, 2013; Killen, Mulvey, Richardson, Jampol, & Woodward, 2011; Margoni &
Surian, 2017), and it has been linked to changes in executive function (Margoni & Surian, 2016a) or perspective-taking abilities
across the lifespan (Chap, 1986; Pratt, Diessner, Pratt, Hunsberger, & Pancer, 1996).
By looking at these previous studies, one can note that older adults, when judging moral scenarios, appear to be less willing or less
able to take all the exculpatory and context information into account. In general, the processing of the morally-relevant information
appears to be somehow shallow, often resulting in harsh moral judgments (Margoni et al., 2018). Therefore, with respect to the
present research, a first possibility is that older participants, compared to younger participants, would show a reduced tendency to
distinguish between morality and convention. In particular, given the evidence of harsh judgments in old age, it can be hypothesized
that older participants would condemn moral and conventional violations by considering them both as socially transcendent. Indeed,
they may readily link violations of conventional norms to concerns for individual rights, fairness, justice, and welfare of others. In
other words, older adults, compared to younger adults, may be less focused on the details of the context of the scenario and may show
a greater tendency to condemn regardless of the domain distinction.
A mechanism through which condemnation of conventional transgressions may occur is disgust. Indeed, not infrequently, con-
ventional transgressions are actions that may elicit disgust. Take for instance the case of a man that publicly wipes the nose with his
socks. Although people can imagine a society in which everyone does this, they still may experience disgust. Research has shown that
people sometimes moralize conventional transgressions that are disgusting (Nichols, 2002), and this result has been accounted for by
the tendency of people to infer that, in such cases and in a broader way, a victim has been harmed (Royzman, Leeman, & Baron, 2009;
see also Gray, Schein, & Ward, 2014; Schein, Ritter, & Gray, 2016).
Therefore, in the present research it was important to have the chance to assess whether the hypothesized greater tendency of
older adults to judge conventional violations as socially transcendent was specifically related to disgusting actions or, instead,
generalized to conventional violations that likely do not evoke disgust. Perhaps, older adults, compared to younger adults, are simply
more prone to condemn disgusting actions (but see Scheibe & Blanchard-Fields, 2009). Participants were thus presented with cases of
conventional violations thought to evoke some degree of disgust (e.g., a man publicly wiped the nose with his socks) and cases of
conventional violations thought to evoke little or no disgust (e.g., a man wore his pajamas to office). Finding that older adults, more
often than younger adults, judge both disgusting and non-disgusting conventional violations as socially transcendent would imply
that the disgust mechanism cannot, alone, explain possible age-group differences in the tendency to distinguish between morality and
convention.
Finally, a second possibility is that the tendency to draw the moral-conventional distinction is unrelated to the age group or not
affected by the cognitive decline occurring with aging. Indeed, research has shown that also a 2-and-a-half-year-old, who has limited
cognitive processing resources if compared to an adult, can appreciate to some extent the difference between morality and convention
(e.g., Smetana, 1981; Smetana & Braeges, 1990). Moreover, and perhaps most importantly, according to the constructivist account of
the development of the capacity to distinguish between domains of social understanding, the main source of domain differentiation is
the child’s own experience and reasoning about diverse social interactions (Killen & Smetana, 2015). So, for instance, harming actions
typically cause injury, pain and emotional reactions in the victim, and these consequences gradually help children to assign moral
value to these actions (Smetana, Jambon, & Ball, 2018). Since older adults can count on their vast social experience that extends over
the course of a lifetime, it is possible to predict that they would respond similarly to younger adults.
Adding to that, research on moral judgment in autistic children found evidence of a spared ability to distinguish between domains
(Leslie, Mallon, & DiCorcia, 2006; Margoni & Surian, 2016b), suggesting that the expression of this ability is to some extent in-
dependent from theory of mind or social skills. Impairments in mental state reasoning possibly present in the older group (Bottiroli,
Cavallini, Ceccato, Vecchi, & Lecce, 2016; Cavallini, Lecce, Bottiroli, Palladino, & Pagnin, 2013; Henry, Phillips, Ruffman, & Bailey,
2013; see also Cho & Cohen, 2019) should thus not affect the ability to classify transgressions in accord with the distinction among
the domains.

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Younger and older adults differ also because they belong to different generations whose education might have given greater or
lesser importance to the respect of conventional norms. However, according to the proponents of the social domain theory, although
inserted in contexts that are very distant from the Western one, contexts in which conventional norms seem to have a greater weight,
people still show to rely on the moral-conventional distinction (Bersoff & Miller, 1993; Carey & Ford, 1983; Hollos et al., 1986; Song
et al., 1987; Zimba, 1987). Turiel (2002), for example, reported several journalistic accounts of women in Iran, India, Pakistan,
Morocco etc, which overall are consistent with the idea that, also where a great emphasis is placed over socio-cultural rules and
obedience to authority, people do distinguish between domains.
To test the above-mentioned contrasting hypotheses, in Study 1 a moral-conventional judgment task was administered to younger
and older adults. Study 2 then extended Study 1 by assessing young-old adults’ judgments.

2. Study 1

Younger (18–36 years) and older adults (75–98 years) were presented with prototypical cases of moral and conventional vio-
lations, and were asked to evaluate the social transcendence of the norms that were violated. Predictions were that either (a) given
previous evidence of a tendency towards generating judgments without taking into account context information in old age, older
adults, compared to younger adults, would produce evaluations reflecting a reduced moral-conventional distinction, or (b) both age
groups would show similar moral-conventional distinction effects.
Participants were also asked to judge the wrongness and the punishability of the violations. Here, previous evidence of harsher
moral judgment in old age can lead to the prediction that, compared to younger adults, older adults would judge conventional
violations more severely. Age-group differences on the severity of judgments of moral violations may instead be hidden by ceiling
effects. It is worth noticing, however, that these hypotheses on severity are not strictly related to the distinction between domains, as
it has been shown that domain differentiation and judgment of the seriousness of the violations are independent (Tisak & Turiel,
1988).
To further assess and eventually exclude the possibility that answers to the moral-conventional task were associated with par-
ticipants’ executive functioning skills, a task measuring individual differences in working memory was employed in Study 1. Although
even younger preschoolers, whose information processing resources are limited, distinguish between domains, differences in ex-
ecutive functioning skills could still play a role in explaining a possible reduction in the moral-conventional distinction effect sizes.
For example, working memory skills, even if ancillary, if limited could favor a shallow processing of the information provided in the
scenario.

2.1. Methods

2.1.1. Participants
The sample size was determined by an a-priori power analysis for a mixed ANOVA testing the interaction between the within-
subject variable (moral, disgust-conventional, conventional) and the between-subject variable (young, old). To detect a medium
effect size (f = 0.25) with alpha set at 0.05, a power of 0.95, correlations among measurements = 0.50, a minimum total sample size
of 44 participants was required. Since the current study was the first to investigate the moral-conventional distinction in older adults,
it was not possible to estimate the expected effect size based on previous similar studies. However, the choice of a medium effect size
(f = 0.25) might have reflected a somehow conservative decision (i.e., an under-estimation of the true effect size) or might have been
in line with previous research. Indeed, at least two recent studies on aging and moral judgment, on which the hypotheses of the
present study have been partially developed, reported an effect size f = 0.87 (for a 2 × 2 mixed-factor ANOVA; Margoni et al., 2018)
and an effect size f = 0.24 (for a 2 × 2 mixed-factor ANOVA; Margoni, Geipel, Hadjichristidis, & Surian, 2019). A second a-priori
power analysis for the correlations between participants’ judgments and participants’ working memory skills, point biserial model,
two-tailed (effect size ρ = 0.30 and power of 0.80) revealed a minimum total sample size of 82 participants.
Eighty-one participants were recruited: 41 younger adults (26 female, Mage = 24.51 years, SDage = 4.92, age range: 18–36) and
40 older adults (33 female, Mage = 87.03, SDage = 6.45, age range: 75–98). One additional older participant was excluded because
she answered only to some of the questions. Older adults had on average 7.35 years of education, SD = 3.26, while younger adults
had M = 14.39 years of education, SD = 2.04. Younger participants were recruited through flyers posted around the University of
Trento, while older participants were recruited through nursing homes from around the city of Rovereto (Italy). Each participant
provided written informed consent and was not compensated for participation. The research protocol was approved by the local
Ethics Committee (University of Trento).

2.1.2. Materials and procedure

Participants first completed a moral judgment task, and then were asked to complete a working memory test.

2.1.2.1. Moral-conventional judgment task. Each participant received nine scenarios modeled on those used in Huebner, Lee, and
Hauser (2010). To older adults who had difficulties in reading, the scenarios were read aloud by the experimenter. Three scenarios
involved a moral violation. In the punch scenario, a young man punched a football player of the team from which he was previously
cut. In the tripping scenario, a diner tripped the waiter because he thought he did not pay attention to his order. In the stealing scenario,
a man stole some expensive clothes. Six further scenarios involved a conventional violation. Three were thought to be conventional
violations that may provoke disgust. In the tablecloth scenario, a diner used the tablecloth to wipe his face. In the restaurant scenario, a

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diner burped loudly while eating at a restaurant. In the sock scenario, a man publicly wiped his nose with his sock. Another three
scenarios were thought to be violations of conventional norms that evoke less disgust or no disgust at all. In the pajamas scenario, a
man wore his pajamas to office. In the kissing scenario, a couple kissed each other heedless of the people watching them. In the car
scenario, a man drove a very old car notwithstanding his neighbors’ complaints about the car noisy muffler. Across participants,
scenario selection was rotated following a Latin square design. After each scenario, participants were asked four questions:

1) Badness: “How would you judge [the agent’s] behaviour?”

2) Punish: “How much do you think that [the agent] should be punished?”
3) Authority: “Imagine that [the restaurant owner gave the permission to wipe the face with the tablecloth].1 Would it be wrong for
[the agent to use the tablecloth]?”
4) Context: “Imagine that [the agent] lived somewhere where everyone else did this. Would it be wrong for [the agent] to do this?”

Participants responded to the first question on a 7-point scale anchored at 0 with Very good, at 3 with Neither good or bad, and at 6
with Very bad, and to the second question on a scale anchored at 0 with Not at all, at 3 with Somewhat, and at 6 with Very much. These
questions were always presented first, with their order (bad first vs. punish first) counterbalanced across participants. Then, parti-
cipants responded to the last two binary (yes, no) questions, again presented in a counterbalanced order.

2.1.2.2. Working memory task. Participants completed a listening span test (Pazzaglia, Palladino, & De Beni, 2000) adapted from the
Reading Span Test (Daneman & Carpenter, 1980) which measures individual differences in working memory skills. Participants heard
some sentences and, after each sentence, were asked whether the sentence was true or false. After a series of sentences, participants
were asked to recall the final word of each one. The number of final words to recall varied from two to six.

2.1.2.3. Mini-mental status examination. The Mini-Mental Status Examination (Folstein, Folstein, & McHugh, 1975) was used as a
screening tool for dementia in the older group. MMSE scores may reveal severe impairment/dementia (0–9), moderate impairment
(10–16), mild impairment (17–19), suspected impairment (20–24), or no impairment (24–30).

2.2. Results

2.2.1. Preliminary analyses

The average mini-mental status examination score was M = 26.30, SD = 3.10. Twelve participants showed a suspected impair-
ment, with scores between 20 and 24. Excluding these participants from the data analyses did not change the main pattern of the
results. Subsequent analyses were therefore conducted on the full sample.
There was an almost significant difference between the age groups in terms of gender composition (older adults = 0.83 females,
younger adults = 0.63 females), χ2 (1, N = 81) = 3.73, p = .054. However, since for all the measures (badness, punish, authority,
and context judgments), the mixed-factor ANOVAs did not reveal any significant interaction of violation (moral, disgust-conven-
tional, conventional) and age (young, old) with gender, Fs(2, 154) ≤ 2.06, ps ≥ .131, subsequent analyses omitted gender as a factor.
On average, older adults had less years of school education than younger adults (M = 7.35 years, SD = 3.26, and M = 14.39,
SD = 2.04, respectively), t(79) = 11.68, p < .001. To assess whether education influenced the predictive relationship between age
group and judgments of badness and punishability, separate ANCOVAs were conducted with age (young, old) as the independent
variable, judgments of badness and punishability of either moral, disgust-conventional or conventional violations as the dependent
variable, and education as the covariate. All the significant effects of age on judgments of badness and punishability remained
significant after controlling for education, Fs(1, 78) ≥ 6.58, ps ≤ .012. Next, four separate ANCOVAs were conducted with age group
as the independent variable, education as the covariate, and moral-conventional distinction level (mean score for moral scenarios
minus mean score for disgust-conventional or conventional scenarios) associated with authority and context judgments as the de-
pendent variable. Effects of age on the distinction levels remained significant after controlling for education, Fs(1, 78) ≥ 10.43,
ps ≤ .002. Subsequent analyses thus omitted education as a factor.

2.2.2. Badness judgments

Badness judgments were analyzed using an ANOVA with age (old, young) as a between-subject factor and violation (moral,
disgust-conventional, conventional) as a within-subject factor. The analysis yielded a main effect of age, F(1, 79) = 20.84, p < .001,
Cohen’s f = 0.51. On average, older adults gave higher badness ratings than younger adults (see Table S1 for means and SDs). The
analysis also revealed a main effect of violation, F(2, 158) = 130.41, p < .001, f = 1.29, which, crucially, was qualified by an
Age × Violation interaction, F(2, 158) = 8.45, p < .001, f = 0.33 (Fig. 1). Both older and younger adults condemned moral vio-
lations more than disgust-conventional and conventional violations, ts(39) ≥ 5.71 and ts(40) ≥ 11.81 respectively, ps < .001.
However, the Cohen’s ds associated with older adults’ responses were equal to 0.90 and 1.27 (for the comparison between moral and
disgust-conventional, and between moral and conventional, respectively), about half of the size of the ds associated with younger
adults’ responses, which were 1.85 and 2.55, respectively.

1
Authority in the restaurant and tablecloth scenarios was the owner of the restaurant, whereas in the pajamas scenario was the agent’s boss, and
in the remaining scenarios was the government which passed a law that said it was okay to do what the agent did.

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Fig. 1. Mean judgments of badness and punishability (top panel) and authority and context judgments (bottom panel) of moral, disgust-conven-
tional and conventional violations across age groups. Error bars show the magnitude of the SEs of the mean.

Did older adults, compared to younger adults, judge moral violations more leniently or did they judge conventional violations
more harshly? Or did they do both? While moral violations were rated similarly by the two age groups, t(79) = 1.09, p > .250, older
adults, compared to younger adults, judged more severely both disgust-conventional violations, t(79) = 3.33, p = .001, d = 0.75, and
conventional violations, t(79) = 5.30, p < .001, d = 1.19.

2.2.3. Punishment judgments

Punishment judgments were submitted to a mixed-factor ANOVA, as above. The analysis yielded a main effect of age, F(1,
79) = 17.15, p < .001, f = 0.46. On average, older adults gave higher punishment ratings. The analysis also revealed a main effect of
violation, F(2, 158) = 119.02, p < .001, f = 1.23, which was qualified by an Age × Violation interaction, F(2, 158) = 10.65,
p < .001, f = 0.37. Although both older and younger adults judged moral violations more punishable than disgust-conventional and
conventional violations, ts(39) ≥ 5.74 and ts(40) ≥ 11.24 respectively, ps < .001, the ds associated with older adults’ responses
were 0.91 and 1.03, whereas the ds associated with younger adults’ responses were 1.76 and 2.12, i.e. about twice those of the
elderly. Further analyses revealed that while punishment judgments of moral violations were not significantly different across age
groups, t(79) = 1.10, p > .250, older adults, compared to younger adults, judged disgust-conventional and conventional violations
more punishable, t(79) = 4.30, p < .001, d = 0.96, and t(79) = 4.28, p < .001, d = 0.95, respectively.

2.2.4. Authority judgments

Responses to the binary questions were coded as 1 = Yes, and 0 = No. Each participant’s scores were then summed yielding total
scores (for moral, disgust-conventional, and conventional cases separately) ranging from 0 (No to all the scenarios) to 3 (Yes to all the
scenarios). Next, these scores were compared using parametric analyses.
Authority judgments were submitted to a mixed-factor ANOVA. The analysis yielded a main effect of age, F(1, 79) = 104.36,
p < .001, f = 1.15 (on average, older adults gave higher ratings) and a main effect of violation, F(2, 158) = 53.36, p < .001,
f = 0.82, which was qualified by an Age × Violation interaction, F(2, 158) = 24.42, p < .001, f = 0.55. Further analyses revealed
that both groups tended to judge moral violations less authority dependent than disgust-conventional violations; however, for older
adults it was a tendency towards significance, t(39) = 1.84, p = .073, whereas for younger adults the difference was significant, t
(40) = 7.96, p < .001. Then, both older and younger adults judged moral violations less authority dependent than conventional
violations, t(39) = 4.03 and t(40) = 8.11 respectively, ps < .001. However, the ds associated with the older group were 0.29 and
0.64, whereas the ds associated with the younger group were much bigger, 1.24 and 1.26.
To directly assess the hypothesis that moral-conventional distinction effects are reliably smaller in older participants, two sets of
difference scores were created: a moral-conventional distinction level (mean score for moral scenarios minus mean score for

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conventional scenarios) and a moral-disgust-conventional distinction level (mean score for moral scenarios minus mean score for disgust-
conventional scenarios). A comparison between age groups revealed that both levels were lower in older adults, Fs(1, 79) ≥ 18.09,
ps < .001.
Additional analyses suggested that these age-group differences in the distinction levels were related to the tendency of older
adults to judge conventional violations, in particular, as less authority dependent. Older adults, compared to younger adults, rated all
types of violations (moral, disgust-conventional, conventional) less authority dependent, t(79) = 3.61, t(79) = 12.43, and t
(79) = 9.13 respectively, ps ≤ .001. However, the d associated with the age-group difference in judging moral violations was 0.80,
whereas the ds associated with the age-group differences in judging disgust-conventional and conventional violations were much
bigger, 2.77 and 2.02 respectively.

2.2.5. Context judgments

Context judgments were analyzed using a mixed-factor ANOVA. The analysis yielded a main effect of age, F(1, 79) = 118.09,
p < .001, f = 1.22 (on average, older adults gave higher ratings), and a main effect of violation, F(2, 158) = 63.57, p < .001,
f = 0.90, which was qualified by an Age × Violation interaction, F(2, 158) = 18.95, p < .001, f = 0.49. Both older and younger
adults judged moral violations less context dependent than disgust-conventional and conventional violations, ts(39) ≥ 3.91 and ts
(40) ≥ 8.47 respectively, ps < .001. However, while the ds associated with the older group were 0.61 and 0.71, the ds associated
with the younger group were 1.32 and 1.38. Indeed, both the moral-conventional and the moral-disgust-conventional distinction
levels were lower in older adults than in younger adults, Fs(1, 79) ≥ 11.56, ps ≤ .001. Further analyses revealed that while older
adults, compared to younger adults, rated all types of violations (moral, disgust-conventional, conventional) less context dependent, t
(79) = 4.62, t(79) = 12.90, and t(79) = 9.33 respectively, ps < .001, the d associated with the age-group difference in judging
moral violations was 1.04, but the ds associated with the age-group differences in judging disgust-conventional and conventional
violations were 2.88 and 2.08.

2.2.6. Correlations between age group, moral-conventional distinction, and working memory
Table 1 reports correlations between age group (0 = Young, 1 = Old), moral-conventional distinction level (mean score for moral
scenarios minus mean score for conventional scenarios) for authority and context judgments, and working memory. Age group was
negatively correlated with the two moral-conventional distinction levels (authority, context): Old age was associated with smaller
moral-conventional distinction effects. Age group was also negatively correlated with working memory that, crucially, was positively
correlated with the moral-conventional distinction levels.

Table 1
Correlations between Age Group, Moral-Conventional Distinction Level, and Working Memory.
1 2 3 4

1. Age Group –
2. Difference in Authority Judgment –.43** –
3. Difference in Context Judgment –.36** .67** –
4. Working memory skills –.71** .31** .24* –

Note. Age was entered as a binary variable (0 = Young, 1 = Old). Difference in authority or context judgments refers to the difference between the
mean score for moral scenarios and the mean score for conventional scenarios, for each type of judgment (**p < .01, *p < .05).

2.2.7. Regressions predicting the moral-conventional distinction

Did age-group differences in working memory contribute to age-group differences in the size of the moral-conventional distinction
effects? To answer, working memory was added as a mediator to a model which had the moral-conventional distinction level
(assessed with the authority question) as the outcome variable and the age group as the independent variable. A 5000 bootstrapping
resamples was used (Preacher & Hayes, 2008). As displayed in Fig. 2, the relationship between age group and the distinction level
was not mediated by working memory skills (i.e. it was not reduced after taking into account working memory). While the un-
standardized regression coefficient between age group and working memory was significant, b = –2.33, p < .001, 95 % CI [–2.85,
–1.80], the unstandardized regression coefficient between working memory and moral-conventional distinction was not, b = 0.01,
p = .880, 95 % CI [–0.17, 0.20]. The partially standardized indirect effect was β = –0.03, 95 % [–0.44, 0.39], and the bootstrapped
unstandardized indirect effect was b = –0.03, 95 % [–0.48, 0.41]. Therefore, the indirect effect was not significant. An additional
mediation analysis with the moral-conventional distinction level assessed with the context question as the outcome variable yielded
similar results: the 95 % CI of the indirect effect coefficient b included 0, indicating no statistically significant mediation.

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Fig. 2. Unstandardized regression coefficients and bootstrap CIs for the relationship between age group and moral-conventional distinction level (in
the figure, values refer to the authority judgment) as mediated by working memory skills.

2.3. Discussion

Study 1 reported evidence that both younger and older adults draw the moral-conventional distinction. Importantly, however, the
study also revealed that the tendency to distinguish between domains was reduced in older adults. Moreover, older adults, compared
to younger adults, judged violations of conventional norms, but not violations of moral norms, more severely. Working memory did
not mediate the relationship between age and moral-conventional distinction level.

3. Study 2

Study 2 sought to replicate the results of Study 1 with a sample of old adults who were younger (aged 65–77 years) than those
who participated in Study 1 (aged 75–98 years). The main aim of Study 2 was to assess whether age-group differences in the strength
of the moral-conventional distinction can be found also when comparing young adults with young-old adults.
Study 1 indicated that older adults tended to condemn conventional violations more than younger adults. However, some specific
scenarios might have facilitated this effect. Actions depicted in the restaurant scenario (a diner burped loudly), in the kissing scenario
(a couple kissed each other heedless of other people around), and in the car scenario (a man drove a noisy car notwithstanding his
neighbors’ complaints) might all have been interpreted as affecting the welfare of others in a way that could arguably be conceived as
moral. Although it is important to recall that the current research mainly aimed at addressing age-group differences, in Study 2, to
provide participants with actions that could be more easily sorted into different domains, the above-mentioned scenarios were no
longer employed. In general, compared to Study 1, both disgust-conventional and conventional scenarios used in Study 2 had fewer
possible moral undertones.
Three further changes were introduced to ameliorate the moral-conventional task. First, instead of asking whether the character’s
action was good or bad, participants were asked to judge whether the action was morally right or wrong. This change was introduced
to help participants judging in a strictly moral sense rather than, for example, in a legal sense (what is bad for the legal system or what
could have been resulted in bad outcomes such as detention for the transgressor). Second, to assess whether older participants,
compared to younger participants, judge conventional violations more harshly because they think that those actions might still have
resulted in some harm, participants were asked to evaluate the degree of harm that the character’s action has caused. Third, par-
ticipants were asked to provide a brief justification for their judgments.

3.1. Methods

3.1.1. Participants
Sample size was determined by an a-priori power analysis for a mixed ANOVA testing the interaction between a within-subject
variable with three levels (moral, disgust-conventional, conventional) and a between-subject variable with two levels (young, old).
To detect a medium to large effect size (f = 0.33, based on the smaller effect size found in Study 1 for an Age × Violation interaction)
with alpha set at 0.05, a power of 0.95, correlations among measurements = 0.50, a minimum total sample size of 26 participants
was required. However, a larger total sample size of 60 participants (30 younger adults and 30 older adults) was recruited as a
safeguard measure to protect against the possibility that the true effect sizes were indeed smaller than predicted. An ANOVA such as
the one detailed above, with N = 60 and power set at 0.80, can detect an effect size as small as f = 0.16.
Participants were 30 younger adults (20 female, Mage = 26.50 years, SDage = 5.45, age range: 18–35) and 30 older adults (22
female, Mage = 69.40, SDage = 3.99, age range: 65–77). Older adults had on average 14.69 years of education, SD = 2.58, whereas
younger adults had M = 14.80 years of education, SD = 2.35. Participants were recruited from UK and US residents using Prolific,
and received $1 for completing the questionnaire (research indicates that on-line systems are valid methods for recruiting older
participants; Lemaster, Pichayayothin, & Strough, 2015).

3.1.2. Materials and procedure

Participants completed a moral-conventional judgment task which was identical to the task in Study 1 with a few but relevant
exceptions. First, each participant received six scenarios rather than nine: the punch and the tripping scenarios (moral violations), the

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tablecloth and the sock scenarios (disgust-conventional violations), the pajamas scenario and a new scenario, the bellhop scenario, in
which a bellhop disrespectfully addressed the Prime Minister of Australia by saying “Hello John! What’s up?” (conventional viola-
tions). Second, the badness question became a wrongness question, anchored at 0 with Very morally right, at 3 with Neither right nor
wrong, and at 6 with Very morally wrong. Third, to the first group of questions (wrongness and punish questions), a perceived harm
question was added, “How much harm do you think that [the agent’s] action has caused?”, anchored at 0 with Not at all, at 3 with
Somewhat, and at 6 with Very much.
Fourth, after the test questions, participants were asked to provide one brief justification of their previous judgments.
Justifications were coded in one of five categories using a coding system adapted from Yau and Smetana (2003). The categories were:
(1) intrinsic outcomes: participants referred to the fact that the action affected others’ welfare, violated others’ rights or was unfair
(e.g., “It is inflicting harm on another person”); (2) no intrinsic outcomes: action did not affect others’ welfare (e.g., “Nobody was
harmed by his actions”); (3) conventional: appeal to cultural or local rules and expectations, to common behaviors or authority’s
sanction (e.g., “It is an expected behavior in his country”); (4) pragmatic: reference to the practical consequences of the action (e.g., “It
would cause work for the staff such as additional washing of table cloths”); (5) undifferentiated: action was condemned for unspecified
reasons (e.g., “This is morally wrong”). Participants’ answers received a 1 for the category in which they fell into, and a 0 for the other
categories. Two raters independently coded all the responses. Interrater agreement was 84 %, and all the disagreements that arose
were then resolved by discussion.

3.2. Results

3.2.1. Preliminary analyses

Age groups did not differ in terms of gender composition (older adults = 0.73 female, younger adults = 0.67 female), χ2 (1,
N = 60) = 0.32, p = .573, nor did they differ in terms of years of school education, t(57) = 0.17, p = .864. Therefore, these factors
were omitted from the subsequent analyses.

3.2.2. Wrongness judgments

Wrongness judgments were analyzed using a mixed-factor ANOVA, as in Study 1. The analysis yielded a main effect of age, F(1,
58) = 8.90, p = .004, f = 0.39 (on average, older adults gave higher ratings, see Table S2), and a main effect of violation, F(2,
116) = 96.64, p < .001, f = 1.29, which, crucially, was qualified by an Age × Violation interaction that tended towards sig-
nificance, F(2, 116) = 2.53, p = .084, f = 0.21 (Fig. 3). Younger but also older adults condemned moral violations more than disgust-
conventional and conventional violations, ts(29) ≥ 10.28 and ts(29) ≥ 7.70 respectively, ps < .001. Additional analyses indicated

Fig. 3. Mean judgments of wrongness, punishability and perceived harm (top panel) and authority and context judgments (bottom panel) of moral,
disgust-conventional and conventional violations across age groups. Error bars show the magnitude of the SEs of the mean.

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that while the moral cases were rated similarly by the two age groups, t(58) = 1.40, p = .167, older adults, compared to younger
adults, tended to condemn more both disgust-conventional actions, t(58) = 1.77, p = .080, and conventional actions, t(58) = 2.84,
p = .006.

3.2.3. Punishment judgments

A mixed-factor ANOVA yielded a main effect of age, F(1, 58) = 7.10, p = .010, f = 0.35 (on average, older adults gave higher
ratings) and a main effect of violation, F(2, 116) = 341.06, p < .001, f = 2.43, which, however, was not qualified by a significant
Age × Violation interaction, F(2, 116) = 1.61, p = .204, f = 0.17. Indeed, both younger and older adults judged moral violations
more punishable than disgust-conventional and conventional violations, ts(29) ≥ 12.54 and ts(29) ≥ 12.60 respectively, ps < .001.
Additional analyses indicated that older adults, compared to younger adults, tended to judge moral and conventional violations more
punishable, ts(58) ≥ 1.89, ps ≤ .062, but the two age groups rated disgust-conventional violations similarly, t(58) = 0.87, p = .386.

3.2.4. Perceived harm judgments

Harm judgments were analyzed using a mixed-factor ANOVA, which yielded a main effect of violation, F(2, 116) = 293.55,
p < .001, f = 2.25, but not a main effect of age, F(1, 58) = 7.10, p = .137, f = 0.20. The main effect of violation was qualified by a
significant Age × Violation interaction, F(2, 116) = 3.44, p = .035, f = 0.24. Younger but also older adults perceived more harm in
moral scenarios than in disgust-conventional or conventional scenarios, ts(29) ≥ 14.66 and ts(29) ≥ 10.69 respectively, ps < .001.
Additional analyses indicated that older adults, compared to younger adults, perceived more harm in conventional violations, t
(58) = 2.46, p = .017, but the two age groups gave similar ratings both to moral and disgust-conventional violations, ts(58) ≤ 0.83,
ps ≥ .408.

3.2.5. Authority judgments

Responses to the binary questions were coded and summed as in Study 1 yielding for each participant a total score ranging from 0
(No in all the scenarios) to 2 (Yes in all the scenarios), for each type of scenario (moral, disgust-conventional, conventional). The
mixed-factor ANOVA on authority judgments yielded a main effect of age, F(1, 58) = 16.86, p < .001, f = 0.54 (on average, older
adults gave higher ratings), and a main effect of violation, F(2, 116) = 110.17, p < .001, f = 1.38, which, however, was not qua-
lified by a significant Age × Violation interaction, F(2, 116) = 0.71, p = .494, f = 0.11. Younger and older adults judged moral
violations less authority dependent than disgust-conventional and conventional violations, ts(29) ≥ 8.65 and ts(29) ≥ 6.90 respec-
tively, ps < .001, and no significant age-group difference in the distinction levels (i.e. mean score for moral scenarios minus mean
score for disgust-conventional or conventional scenarios) was revealed, Fs(1, 58) ≤ 0.58, ps ≥ .450, f ≤ 0.10. Further analyses in-
dicated that, compared to younger adults, older adults rated all types of violations (moral, disgust-conventional, conventional) less
authority dependent, t(58) = 2.11, t(58) = 3.21, and t(58) = 2.14 respectively, ps ≤ .038.

3.2.6. Context judgments

Context judgments were analyzed using a mixed-factor ANOVA which yielded a main effect of violation, F(2, 116) = 118.39,
p < .001, f = 1.43, but no effect of age, F(1, 58) = 0.61, p = .439, f = 0.10. The Age × Violation interaction did also not reach
significance, F(2, 116) = 0.67, p = .512, f = 0.10. Both younger and older adults judged moral violations less context dependent than
disgust-conventional and conventional violations, ts(29) ≥ 9.10 and ts(29) ≥ 7.22 respectively, ps < .001, and no significant age-
group difference in the distinction levels was found, Fs(1, 58) ≤ 0.38, ps ≥ .538, f ≤ 0.08. Further analyses revealed no age-group
difference in judging either moral, disgust-conventional or conventional violations, ts(58) ≤ 1.20, ps ≥ .234.

3.2.7. Justifications
In both age groups, modal classes were ‘intrinsic outcomes’ justifications for judgments of moral violations, and ‘conventional’
justifications for judgments of disgust-conventional violations (see Table 2). Modal class for judgments of conventional violations
was, in younger adults, ‘no intrinsic outcomes’ justifications and, in older adults, ‘conventional’ justifications. Separate ANOVAs with
age group as the independent variable were then conducted for each category in each type of scenario. Analyses revealed no sig-
nificant effect of age, Fs(1, 58) ≤ 1.83, ps ≥ .181, with two exceptions. First, when justifying their judgments of moral violations,
younger adults used intrinsic outcomes justifications more than older adults did (76 % and 52 % respectively), F(1, 58) = 6.51,
p = .013. This effect may be linked to this second result: when justifying judgments of moral violations, older adults used

Table 2
Means (and SDs) in % for Justifications.
Moral Disgust-conventional Conventional

Justification categories Young Old Young Old Young Old

Intrinsic outcomes 76 (34) 52 (38) 5 (15) 8 (23) 9 (19) 7 (22)

No intrinsic outcomes 0 0 24 (32) 28 (34) 34 (38) 22 (31)
Conventional 7 (22) 7 (22) 33 (41) 30 (34) 29 (31) 38 (34)
Pragmatic 0 0 19 (28) 15 (23) 17 (28) 15 (23)
Undifferentiated 17 (28) 42 (37) 19 (31) 18 (28) 10 (21) 18 (25)

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undifferentiated justifications (e.g., “This is wrong. Period!”) more than younger adults did, possibly indicative of lower willingness
to argue in older participants, 42 % and 17 % respectively, F(1, 58) = 8.11, p = .006. It is also worth noticing that, when justifying
their judgments of disgust-conventional or conventional violations, older adults did not use intrinsic outcomes justifications reliably
more than younger adults.

3.3. Discussion

Study 2 indicated that young-old adults distinguished between domains. Compared to young adults, however, young-old adults
judged conventional violations, but not moral violations, both more wrong and more harmful.

4. General discussion

The present research investigated age-group differences in the tendency to distinguish between violations of moral norms (hitting
another person) and violations of socio-conventional norms (wearing pajamas to office). Overall, young, young-old and old adults
distinguished between morality and convention: each group judged conventional norms more context and authority dependent than
moral norms. However, Study 1 also reported evidence that older adults, compared to younger adults, showed reliably smaller moral-
conventional distinction effects. Moreover, across the two studies, compared to younger adults, older adults were more likely to
condemn conventional transgressions. Working memory skills correlated with participants’ responses to the moral-conventional
judgment task, but did not mediate the relationship between age group and moral-conventional distinction level.
What factors may help explain the reported age-group differences in such a basic capacity for moral judgment? First, it should be
noticed that the present results indicating a difference between groups cannot be explained by a tendency in old age to condemn
disgusting actions. Indeed, in both studies it was found that smaller distinction levels in older adults were not restricted to disgusting
actions but, instead, generalized to non-disgusting conventional transgressions.
Second, these results can be linked to previous work reporting that, when judging the moral wrongness of an accidental harming
action or the moral badness of an agent that accidentally caused harm to others, older adults, unlike younger adults, either tend not to
focus on exculpatory and context information (e.g., the absence of a negative intention; Margoni et al., 2018; Moran et al., 2012) or
spontaneously attribute negligence to agents (Margoni et al., 2019). In this respect, older adults’ judgments are characterized by
harshness and low flexibility. Consistent with this characterization, the present studies reported that, compared to younger parti-
cipants, older participants gave higher ratings, but in particular they rated conventional violations more severely.
Focusing only on wrongness and punishability judgments, results thus support the hypothesis that, compared to younger adults,
older adults generate more severe judgments. Although in the context on the present research severity of judgments is not a useful
measure to determine whether participants distinguished between domains, these results may still be of potential interest for the
understanding of age-related or generational differences in political preferences or tolerance towards cultural changes. Of particular
interest are the results of Study 2 which showed that older adults, compared to younger adults, perceived more harm in conventional
violations. Future research can build on these findings to better understand the cognitive mechanisms underpinning possible age-
group differences in social, moral and political attitudes.
Even if the current studies showed that each age group distinguished between domains, Study 1 also reported evidence that the
moral-conventional distinction was reliably reduced in the older sample. A tentative account of this finding may rely on evidence
suggesting a lack of focus on context information in older adults (Margoni et al., 2018, 2019). Compared to young adults, old adults in
Study 1, but not young-old adults in Study 2, may have shown lower moral-conventional distinction levels because of their reduced
tendency to be flexible in judging social situations or because of their shallow processing of context information (e.g., information
about the authority giving permission). These results are thus again consistent with previous findings suggesting a general picture
which highlights the greater ‘rigidity’ and the lower flexibility of older adults’ moral judgments (see also evidence that older adults,
compared to younger adults, are more deontological and less consequentialist: Arutyunova, Alexandrov, & Hauser, 2016;
Hannikainen, Machery, & Cushman, 2018; McNair, Okan, Hadjichristidis, & de Bruin, 2019).
A further result of the present research was that individual differences in executive functioning did not prove useful in better
explaining the age-group differences in the participants’ responses to the moral-conventional task. This pattern of results could be due
to the particular measure of executive function that was employed or, alternatively, to the absence of an explanatory link between
executive function and participants’ tendency to draw the moral-conventional distinction. Future research can investigate in more
detail the link between age-group differences in social and moral judgments and various components of executive function such as
working memory, inhibitory control, and set shifting.
Even if it has been reported that already in the early preschool years, when executive functioning skills are still developing,
children show an initial capacity to distinguish between domains (Smetana, 1981; Smetana & Braeges, 1990), there may still be some
fine-grained differences in the degree to which the distinction is drawn that can be partially explained by ancillary changes occurring
in the development of executive functioning. For example, it can be posited that people often need to engage in counterfactual
reasoning when answering the authority and context questions, and counterfactual reasoning may be cognitively demanding,
especially for older adults (e.g., Migliore, Curcio, Mancini, & Cappa, 2014). Finally, to better assess causality, a possible direction for
future studies would be to manipulate cognitive load demands. On the one hand, it can be predicted that tasks which induce cognitive
load would increase the reduction in the moral-conventional distinction. On the other hand, to help older participants distinguish
between domains at the level of younger participants, future research could develop simpler and less cognitively demanding tasks.
Since the design of the present research was cross-sectional, it is not possible to know whether the reported results reflect

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developmental or cohort effects. Indeed, it can be argued that older participants belong to a generation that, unlike younger gen-
erations, in school or in other educational settings, developed a particularly strict attitude towards rules. However, the distinction
between morality and convention has been posited by domain theorists to be a core and universal aspect of moral reasoning, that
happened to be found across a variety of cultures, including the so-called ‘non-Western collectivistic cultures’ where a strict attitude
towards rules is also likely present (e.g., Bersoff & Miller, 1993; Hollos et al., 1986; Miller & Bersoff, 1992; Nisan, 1987; Nucci et al.,
1983; Song et al., 1987; Turiel et al., 1987). Moreover, the current studies found that, compared to young adults, old adults, but not
young-old adults, showed reliably smaller distinction effects. Generational differences are likely to be present also between young
and young-old adults, but both groups showed similar levels of moral-conventional distinction. Future studies will help decide
whether the age-group differences reported in the present research have to be attributed to generational changes in attitudes towards
rules or, instead, reflect aging processes.
In conclusion, this research indicates that both younger and older adults distinguished between morality and convention. That is,
each age group expressed an ability that in classical theories has been considered a basis of human moral competence. However, and
importantly, this research also reported that old adults, compared to young adults, showed reliably smaller distinction effects and a
greater tendency to judge conventional violations as context and authority independent.

Appendix A. Supplementary data

Supplementary material related to this article can be found, in the online version, at doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2019.
100840.

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