Moral judgments and emotional reactions to sociomoral violations are heavily impacted by a perpetrator's intentions and desires, which pose a threat to social harmony. Given that older adults are more motivated to maintain interpersonal harmony relative to younger adults, older adults may be more reactive to malicious desires. In three studies, we investigated adult age differences in moral judgments and emotional reactions to sociomoral violations. In all studies, participants read scenarios in which a perpetrator either (a) desired to harm another but nothing happened, or (b) harmed another accidentally without malicious desire. Study 2 incorporated additional scenarios designed to evoke anger and disgust without explicitly implicating another person to evaluate whether age differences emerge only when sociomoral violations against another are salient. In Study 3, we examined the combined effects of malicious desires and harmful outcomes by including scenarios in which (a) harmful desires were coupled with harmful outcomes, and (b) benign desires were coupled with benign outcomes. Predominantly across the studies, older adults judged perpetrators who desired to harm another more harshly but judged perpetrators who accidentally harmed another more leniently than younger adults. Emotional reactions generally corresponded with the differences in judgments. Taken together, this work suggests that desires more strongly impact older relative to younger adults' judgments and emotional reactions in sociomoral contexts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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动机随着年龄的增长而变得更加重要：成年人对社会道德违规行为的反应存在年龄差异。


对社会道德违法行为的道德判断和情绪反应很大程度上受到行为人意图和欲望的影响，对社会和谐构成威胁。鉴于相对于年轻人而言，老年人更有动力维持人际和谐，因此老年人可能对恶意欲望更敏感。在三项研究中，我们调查了成年人在道德判断和对社会道德违规行为的情绪反应方面的差异。在所有研究中，参与者阅读的场景中，犯罪者要么（a）想要伤害他人但什么也没发生，要么（b）无意中伤害了他人而没有恶意。研究 2 纳入了额外的场景，旨在引起愤怒和厌恶，而不明确暗示另一个人，以评估年龄差异是否仅在针对他人的社会道德违规行为明显时才出现。在研究 3 中，我们通过纳入以下场景来检验恶意欲望和有害结果的综合影响：(a) 有害欲望与有害结果相结合，(b) 良性欲望与良性结果相结合。在所有研究中，老年人对那些想要伤害他人的施暴者的评价大多比年轻人更严厉，但对无意伤害他人的施暴者的评价则比年轻人更宽容。情绪反应通常与判断的差异相对应。总而言之，这项工作表明，相对于年轻人，欲望在社会道德背景下对老年人的判断和情绪反应的影响更大。 （PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2024 APA，保留所有权利）。