Judgments of blame and forgiveness: A comparison of young adults, older adults, and older adults with dementia

Differences in Blame-Like and Forgiveness-Like Judgments between Young People, Healthy Older People, and Older People with Dementia

“…This theoretical framework describes how individuals cognitively combine various information cues when deciding or elaborating a moral judgment [7]. Information integration theory has already been applied to studies of older people with dementia and healthy (i.e., non-demented) older people [8,9]. Fontaine et al compared the cognitive operation of moral judgment in healthy older adults vs. older people with Alzheimer's disease dementia [8].…”

“…To specify Fontaine et al's results [8], Decroix et al compared young adults, healthy older adults and older people with dementia in two separate studies of the mechanisms of blame and forgiveness judgments [9]. In the first study, the researchers found that older adults with dementia differed from both young adults and healthy older adults in the way that they mentally integrated two information cues (the intention and the consequence) in a blame task and in a forgiveness task [9]. Although the older people with dementia took account of intent and consequence in blame judgments, they gave less weight to consequence: the more intentional the act, the more blameworthy it was considered to be [9].…”

“…In the first study, the researchers found that older adults with dementia differed from both young adults and healthy older adults in the way that they mentally integrated two information cues (the intention and the consequence) in a blame task and in a forgiveness task [9]. Although the older people with dementia took account of intent and consequence in blame judgments, they gave less weight to consequence: the more intentional the act, the more blameworthy it was considered to be [9]. Conversely, older adults with dementia only considered the intention factor in forgiveness judgments.…”

“…Furthermore, cue integration by older adults with dementia depends on the kind of moral judgment. In the second study, Decroix et al compared the ability of older people with dementia to integrate more than two information cues when making a judgment [9]. The results showed that when scenarios contained three, four or five information cues, the older people with dementia considered no more than two.…”

“…The intention was an invariant information cue (i.e., it was considered in all types of judgment) and was prioritized in each type of judgment by older adults with dementia. Decroix et al stated that other types of moral judgment should be studied [9,10].…”