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Justice motive effects in ageism: The effects of a victim's age on observer perceptionsof injustice and punishment judgments!

Mitchell J. Callan a,!, Rael J. Dawtry a, James M. Olson b

a Department of Psychology, University of Essex, UKb Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, Canada

H I G H L I G H T S

! The suffering of an older (vs. younger) person is perceived as less unfair.! Observers punished a harm doer less when an innocent victim was older (vs. younger).! Victim age affects unfairness and punishment more for people higher in ageism.

a b s t r a c ta r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 23 September 2011Revised 28 June 2012Available online 16 July 2012

Keywords:AgeismJustice motivationPunishment judgmentsPerceived injustice

Drawing on just-world theory and research showing that older persons are generally assigned a devaluedstatus in society, we examined the impact of an innocent victim's age on observer perceptions of injusticeand punishment reactions. In three experiments, we demonstrated that observers perceived the sufferingof an older (vs. younger) person as less unfair, which, in turn, reduced their willingness to punish theharm doer. In Study 1, participants rated a car accident as less unfair and consequently punished the harmdoer less when the victim was older. In Study 2, participants recommended punishing a harm doer less whenthe victim was older (vs. younger) when the need to believe in a just world was threatened (i.e., only whenthe victim was innocent). In Study 3, only participants higher in ageism perceived the suffering of an older(vs. younger) victim as less unfair and, consequently, recommended less punishment for the harm doer.

© 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction

Ageism–or prejudice against older persons–is one of the most in-stitutionalized and socially accepted forms of prejudice in society(Gullette, 2011; Nelson, 2002; Palmore, 1999). Indeed, in their recentmeta-analysis on age bias, Kite, Stockdale, Whitley, and Johnson(2005) found that, overall, respondents favored younger adultsover older adults across all of the dependent variables they exam-ined (e.g., age stereotypes, evaluations). From patronizing speech(Nussbaum, Pitts, Huber, Raup Krieger, & Ohs, 2005) and socialexclusion (Hagestad & Uhlenberg, 2005) to direct discriminationagainst older persons across a variety of domains (e.g., in theworkplaceand healthcare; e.g., Finkelstein & Farrell, 2007; Luker, Wall, Bernhardt,Edwards, & Grimmer-Somers, 2011), a growing literature has docu-mented the negative effects of ageism. Nevertheless, although “gettingold” is an eventual fate for most people, ageism is still a comparatively

understudied “ism” in the psychological literature (Bugental & Hehman,2007; Nelson, 2008).

Working from just-world theory (Lerner, 1980), we examined theconsequences of an innocent victim's age on observers' perceptions ofinjustice and consequent willingness to punish harm doers. Just-worldtheory posits that people need to believe that the world is basically ajust and fair placewhere people getwhat they deserve. Because this jus-tice motive serves an adaptive function (Hafer, 2000a; Lerner, 1977),people often engage in various strategies to maintain a perception ofjustice (e.g., through victim blaming; see Hafer & Bègue, 2005; Hafer& Gosse, 2010).

A just-world theory analysis of the consequences of ageism suggeststhat because older persons are generally assigned a devalued status in so-ciety (Kite et al., 2005; Levy & Banaji, 2002; Li, Vietri, Galvani, & Chapman,2010), observers may experience a sense of injustice less when an older(versus younger) person suffers innocently. That is, froma just-world the-ory perspective, knowledge that a bad outcome occurred to an older andthus less “good” person should be less threatening to one's sense of jus-tice than a bad outcome occurring to a younger person (see Chasteen &Madey, 2003). This analysis is consistent with research showing thatpeople are highly sensitive to the value of others when determiningthe fairness, deservingness, or appropriateness of their outcomes(e.g., Callan, Ellard, & Nicol, 2006; Callan, Kay, Davidenko, & Ellard,

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 48 (2012) 1343–1349

! This research was supported by a grant from the British Academy (SG090101). Wethank Emma Pattison for her assistance with data collection and Colchester Slack Spacefor use of their facilities.! Corresponding author at: Department of Psychology, University of Essex,

Wivenhoe Park, Colchester CO4 3SQ, United Kingdom.E-mail address: mcallan@essex.ac.uk (M.J. Callan).

0022-1031/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2012.07.003

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2009; Ellard & Bates, 1990; Lerner, 1965; Rice & Tra!mow, 2011). Forexample, Callan, Sutton, and Dovale (2010) found that participantsrated a manwho cheated on his wife (bad person) as more deservingof being in a car accident (bad outcome) than a man who did notcheat on his wife (good person).

This analysis is also consistent with research showing that peopleperceive the suffering of devalued (vs. valued) individuals and groupsas less unfair (e.g., Callan, Powell, & Ellard, 2007; Correia, Vala, &Aguiar, 2007; Lerner & Agar, 1972). For example, Correia et al.(2007) found that their Portuguese participants were less concernedabout justice when the child of a Gypsy family suffered than when thechild of a Portuguese family suffered, presumably because the sufferingof a denigrated out-group member is more consistent with the beliefthat people get what they deserve (see also Aguiar, Vala, Correia, &Pereira, 2008). In the current research, we examined whether peoplemay justify the suffering of older persons because older persons aregenerally devalued in society compared to younger persons.

The foregoing analysis resonates with age discrimination researchexamining people's preferences regarding how limited resources, suchas health care, should be distributed across age groups (e.g., Li et al.,2010; Tsuchiya, Dolan, & Shaw, 2003). Re"ecting the “fair innings” ar-gument (e.g., Williams, 1997), people often invoke notions of fairnessand deservingness when justifying prioritizing health care for theyoung over the old (e.g., Tong et al., 2010; Tsuchiya et al., 2003). Here,people may perceive elderly patients as less deserving of, for example,lifesaving treatment because they believe that the elderly have alreadylived their “fair innings.” In a similarmanner, we argue that the sufferingof the elderlymay threaten justworld beliefs less because the elderly aregenerally devalued relative to younger persons. Devaluing may resultfrom such perceptions of “fair innings,” stereotypes of age-relateddeclines in abilities, perceived threat from the inevitability ofone's own aging, or other negative associations with the elderly(see Nelson, 2002).

If people perceive the suffering of older (vs. younger) persons as lessunfair, then theymight also be lesswilling to engage in efforts to restorejustice. In the current research, as well as measuring perceptions ofunfairness, we examined the extent to which people were willing toseek punishment for a person who caused an older (or younger) personto suffer. Although less well-researched than other justice-restoringstrategies (e.g., victim rejection), research has shown that people oftendesire to in"ict “just deserts” on perpetrators of harm (see Carlsmith &Darley, 2008; Miller & Vidmar, 1981) and are less concerned about thesuffering of an innocent victim if they learn that the perpetrators havebeen caught and punished (Hafer, 2000b). Thus, if people experiencethe suffering of older persons as less unfair, then they might also beless willing to punish the harm doer.

Overview of the current research

Across three studies, we examined the general hypothesis that thepropensity for people to devalue older persons might lead observers toperceive the innocent suffering of an older (vs. younger) person as lessunfair, which may, in turn, in"uence punishment reactions. In Study 1,we exposed participants to a scenario in which an older (vs. younger)person was injured in a car accident and assessed their perceptions ofinjustice and punishment reactions. In Study 2, we sought causal evi-dence for the hypothesis that people will reduce their willingnessto punish an individual who caused harm to an older (vs. younger)because of their justice concerns by experimentally crossing a victimage manipulation with a just-world threat manipulation (i.e., victiminnocence). In Study 3, we tested the speci!c role that ageism plays inpeople's responses to the suffering of an older (vs. younger) person byassessing individual differences in people's willingness to distribute alimited resource to the elderly. We expected that the effects of an inno-cent victim's age on perceived injustice and punishment reactions

would occur more strongly among participants showing a bias againstthe elderly.

Study 1

Our goal in Study 1 was to test the prediction that participants willperceive an automobile accident as less unfair and be less willing topunish the harm doerwhen the accident victim is older versus younger.Given our theoretical perspective, we also expected that perceivedinjustice would mediate the effect of the victim's age on punishmentreactions (i.e., age of victim ! perceived injustice ! punishmentreactions).

Method

ParticipantsFifty-three people from the Colchester, United Kingdom (UK),

community participated for £5 (53% male; Mage=30.25, SDage=14.53).Participants were recruited through posters outside a volunteer-run artgallery in the center of Colchester. Participation took place in the artgallery.

Materials and procedureThe participants were told that the study concerned people's per-

ceptions of current news events. They read one of two versions of anarticle ostensibly printed from a local news website. The news articleappeared as though it was printed from the Web (e.g., with adver-tisements). To facilitate the credibility of the cover story, in plainview of the participant, the target article was drawn, ostensibly in arandom fashion, from a number of articles depicting current events.The participants were informed that to save time they would readonly one of the articles.

The target article reported an ostensibly real event in which a femaledriver, named Linda Banford, was seriously injured when a drunk driverran a red light and crashed into her vehicle. The two versions of the articlewere identicalwith the exception that the victim's agewas either younger(18-years-old) or older (74-years-old).1

After reading the article, the participants answered questionsassessing their perceived injustice of the accident (2 items: “Althoughmost accidents are unfair, some accidents are arguably more unfair thanothers. I feel that the accident described in this article was” and “In youropinion, how unjust was the accident described in this article?”). Theseitems were assessed on scales ranging from 1 (slightly unfair/unjust) to 7(extremely unfair/unjust). We assessed punishment reactions by asking,“What degree of punishment do you feel the driver of the Ford Fiestashould receive for hitting Linda Banford?” and “Imagine that you alonehad to decide howmuch time the driver of the Ford Fiesta should spendin prison for hitting Linda Banford. How many months in prison wouldyou recommend?” The !rst item was assessed on a scale ranging from 1(minimal punishment) to 7 (maximum punishment). The participantschose one of 0, 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, or 24+ months in prison for the latteritem. Also included in the questionnaire were items designed to facilitatethe credibility of the cover story (e.g., how interesting and informative thearticle was). The two perceived injustice (r=.32, p=.02) and twopunishment items (r=.37, p=.001) were signi!cantly correlated andaveraged to form composite measures of each construct.

Results and discussion

As predicted, the participants who learned that the victim was olderperceived the accident as less unjust (M=4.53, SD=.97) thandid thepar-ticipants who learned that the victimwas younger (M=5.23, SD=1.06),t(51)=2.48, p=.02, d=.68. Moreover, the participants who learned

1 See supplementary materials for all of the scenarios used in this paper.

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that the victimwas older recommended less punishment for the drunkdriver (M=4.76, SD=1.15) than did the participants who learned thatthe victimwas younger (M=5.51, SD=1.16), t(51)=2.35, p=.02, d=.65.

Mediation analysisPerceived injustice and punishment reactions were signi!cantly

correlated (r=.52, pb .001). Regression analyses showed that whilecontrolling for perceived injustice, the age manipulation no longer af-fected punishment reactions (B=.19, ß=.16, p=.21) and perceivedinjustice remained a signi!cant predictor of punishment reactions(B=.53, ß=.47, p=.001). We used Preacher and Hayes's (2004)bootstrapping procedure (10,000 resamples) to test the indirect effectof the age manipulation on punishment reactions through perceivedinjustice. The analysis revealed a bias-corrected and accelerated 95%con!dence interval (95% BCa CI) of .06 and .37 (point estimate=.18),indicating that perceived injustice was a signi!cant mediator of theeffect of the age manipulation on punishment reactions becausethe con!dence interval did not contain zero.

Study 2

In Study 1, perceived injustice mediated the effect of the victim'sage on punishment reactions. Although this mediation patternconformed to our prediction, the causal direction between perceivedinjustice and punishment reactions could not be determined becauseboth constructs were assessed simultaneously. Moreover, becauseour sample was relatively young, it is not clear whether perceived in-justice was driving the effect of the victim's age on punishment reac-tions or if processes of in-group identi!cation or perceived similarityof age were playing a role. That is, our effects might have been drivenby the tendency to like others who are similar to us (Berscheid & Reis,1998), or the motivation to perceive one's in-group positively (Tajfel& Turner, 1979), rather than a concern for justice. The goal of Study 2,then, was to provide additional causal support for the prediction thatpeople might be less willing to punish a harm doer when the victim isolder versus younger because of their justice concerns (or relativelack thereof).

Adopting a moderation-of-process design (Spencer, Zanna, &Fong, 2005), in Study 2 we crossed a victim age manipulation witha manipulation known to heighten justice concern: victim innocence(e.g., Callan, Shead, & Olson, 2009; Correia et al., 2007; Hafer, 2000b;Hafer & Gosse, 2011). That is, the participants learned that either ayounger or older accident victimwas either responsible for his sufferingor not. We predicted that the effect of the victim's age on punish-ment reactions would be stronger when the victim was innocent(vs. non-innocent). This prediction is compatible with research show-ing that people are more likely to defend their need to believe in ajust world when it is experimentally threatened (e.g., Anderson, Kay,& Fitzsimons, 2010; Callan et al., 2006; Callan, Kay et al., 2009; Hafer,2000a). For example, Callan et al. (2006) found that the participantsadopted more immanent justice explanations for a car accident afterbeing exposed to the prolonged (vs. ended) suffering of an innocent vic-tim. Anderson et al. (2010) found that the participants perceived even-tual bene!ts in the suffering of an innocent victim more strongly afterexperiencing a just-world threat. In a similar fashion, in the currentstudy we expected that the participants would recommend more pun-ishment for someone who caused a younger (vs. older) person to suf-fer only when the victim was innocent (i.e., when the need tobelieve in a just world was threatened). If, on the other hand, per-ceived similarity or in-group identi!cation is driving our effects,then we would expect only main effects of the victim's age and inno-cence on punishment judgments and not our predicted interactioneffect.

Method

ParticipantsThe participants were 119 students and staff from the University of

Essex, UK,whowere recruited through a research volunteer email list tocomplete an online study on “perceptions of news events” (55% male,3% unreported;Mage=26.86, SDage=8.91). The participants completedthe online study for a chance to win one of two £50 amazon.co.uk giftcerti!cates.

Materials and procedureThe participants were invited via email to participate in an online

study investigating “how people form their !rst impressions of newsevents.” They were told that they would read and respond to twobrief news articles. The !rst article, which was ostensibly from the“West Essex Tribune,” reported an automobile accident that occurredin a nearby town (the second article was unrelated to the currentstudy).

In the target article, the participants learned that a male pedestrianwas hospitalized and suffering from a serious concussion after beingstruck by a car while using a pedestrian crossing. As in Study 1, theage of the victim was either younger (14 years old) or older (84 yearsold). Crossed with this age manipulation, the participants learned thatthe victim was either partly responsible for being hit by the car or not.Speci!cally, in the “innocent victim” condition, the participants readthat a witness indicated that the driver was using a cell phone at thetime of the accident. In the “non-innocent victim” condition, the partic-ipants read that a witness indicated that the victim did not observe thestop sign at the pedestrian crossing and was using a cell phone at thetime of the accident.

Next, the participants completed a questionnaire assessing theextent to which they believed the driver should be punished and,as a manipulation check, their perceptions of how responsible thevictim was for the accident. The same two punishment items usedin Study 1 were used in Study 2 (but they were framed in terms ofthe current scenario; r=.77, pb .001). For the manipulation checkitems, the participants rated the extent towhich they believed the victimwas responsible for what happened to him (1= not at all responsible,7= very responsible) and their belief that the accident was largely hisown fault (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree). The two manipu-lation check items were signi!cantly correlated (r=.86, pb .001) andaveraged to form one measure of perceived responsibility.

Results and discussion

Manipulation checkA 2 (Victim's Innocence) X 2 (Victim's Age) ANOVA on the aver-

aged manipulation checks con!rmed that the participants in the“non-innocent victim” condition rated the pedestrian as more responsi-ble for the accident (M=4.19, SD=1.65) than did the participants inthe “innocent victim” condition (M=2.11, SD=.96), F(1, 115)=71.31,pb .001, d=1.54. Neither the main effect of age (p=.79) nor the Age XInnocence interaction (p=.63) achieved statistical signi!cance. Theselatter !ndings are important because they discount the possibility thatthe younger victimwas generally perceived asmore “innocent” by virtueof being young (i.e., victim age was not confounding the innocence ma-nipulation in terms of perceived innocence).

Punishment reactionsFig. 1 illustrates a signi!cant 2 (Victim's Innocence) X 2 (Victim's

Age) interaction effect on punishment reactions, F(1, 115)=4.03,pb .05. Planned comparisons revealed that, as expected, the participantswho learned that the victimwas innocent punished the driver lesswhenthe victim was older (vs. younger), t(115)=3.12, p=.002, d=.76. Theage of the victim did not signi!cantly affect punishment judgmentswhen the victim was non-innocent, p=.86, d=.05. Thus, when the

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participants' concerns about justice were heightened, the age of thevictim affected punishment reactions in the predicted direction.

Study 3

Studies 1 and 2 provided correlational and experimental evidencefor the mediating role of perceived injustice in the effect of a victim'sage on punishment judgments. Our goal in Study 3 was to examinewhether individual differences in ageism moderate the effect of avictim's age on perceived injustice and punishment reactions. Ourtheoretical perspective suggests that people may perceive the sufferingof older persons as less unfair (which translates into less punitiveness)because older persons are generally viewed less favorably than youngerpersons (Kite et al., 2005). If this analysis has merit, then the effect of avictim's age on perceived injustice and punishment reactions shouldoccur primarily among people who are more biased against olderpersons.

In Study 3, the participants completed an ageism measure disguisedas amedical decision-making task. They then learned about the sufferingof an older or younger person and provided their perceptions of injusticeand punishment reactions. We predicted that the effect of the victim'sage on perceived injustice and punishment reactions would occurprimarily among the participants who demonstrated a pattern ofageism in the medical decision-making task. Further, if ageism moder-ates the effect of a victim's age on perceived injustice, then the victim'sage should translate into punishment through perceived injusticemorestrongly at higher levels of ageism (i.e., moderated mediation). In otherwords, we predicted that the indirect effect of the victim's age on pun-ishment reactions through perceived injustice (per Study 1) would bemoderated by individual differences in ageism.

Method

ParticipantsWe approached 120 people at various locations around the Uni-

versity of Essex campus to complete a study on “medical decisionmaking” (48% male; Mage=23.10, SDage=8.48). Participation wasvoluntary or in exchange for a candy bar.

Materials and procedureWe told the participants that the study concerned how people

make decisions about macro (budget cuts) and micro (personnel

decisions) issues and problems commonly facing the medical system.This cover story provided us with a context to assess ageism using ameasure disguised as a “medical decision-making task.”

To limit demand characteristics or socially desirable responding, theparticipants completed a hospital budget cuts scenario as our measureof ageism. Modeled after Haddock, Zanna, and Esses (1993); see also(Kaiser, Dyrenforth, & Hagiwara, 2006; Rudman & Ashmore, 2007;Son Hing, Li, & Zanna, 2002; Wright, Aron, & Tropp, 2002), the partici-pants were told that a local hospital unveiled plans to cut nearly£30 million from its budget during the next three years, and that thehospital's Budget Advisory Committee identi!ed 8 hospital departmentsearmarked to receive most of the cuts. The participants were asked torank-order the 8 departments (gastroenterology, geriatrics, neurology,oncology, ophthalmology, otolaryngology, pediatrics, psychiatry) in termsof which they believed should receive the most cuts (to the least cuts).In parentheses beside each department was a plain description of thedepartment's role (e.g., “eye/vision care” for ophthalmology). We in-cluded the pediatrics department to test the assumption that theparticipants would recommend cutting more from the geriatrics de-partment than the pediatrics department (i.e., that ageism is widelypresent). For analysis and presentation, we reverse scored therank-orders so that higher values indicate more recommended cutsto the geriatrics department. We operationalized the absoluterank-order of budget cuts to the geriatrics department as re"ectingmore negative evaluations of older persons (see below).

Budget cut measure validation. A separate sample of 39 participants(36% male, 10% unreported; Mage=22.03, SDage=8.23) recruitedfrom around the University of Essex campus completed the samebudget cuts scenario along with a “feelings thermometer” question-naire (Haddock et al., 1993) that included elderly people among severaldistracter groups (e.g., farmers, Canadians, mechanics, coffee drinkers).Each group was rated on an 11-point scale (0=extremely unfavorable,100=extremely favorable). Analyses con!rmed that the more theparticipants recommended cutting from the geriatrics department'sbudget, the less favorable were their attitudes toward elderly people(r=!.47, p=.003). This !nding is consistent with research showingsimilar relations between recommended budget cuts for a given socialgroup (e.g., the budget of a gay and lesbian student union group)and attitudes towards those groups (Haddock et al., 1993; Rudman& Ashmore, 2007).

Medical accident scenario. Following the budget cut measure, theparticipants read a scenario involving a medical accident occurring toeither a 12-year-old girl or 82-year-old woman. The scenario, whichwas modeled after a real medical accident case study (see Reason,1995), detailed a situation where a radiotherapy technician accidentlyadministered an intense blast of radiation to a patient's unprotectedshoulder. The participants read that although the woman (girl) sur-vived the incident, she experienced excruciating pain during the inci-dent and was left with gaping lesions on her upper body.

Finally, the participants answered questions assessing the degree towhich they wanted to punish the technician (2 items: one in generalterms and one involving suspension of the technician's employment;r=.65, pb .001) and their perceptions of injustice (2 items on the per-ceived unfairness and injustice of the accident; r=.67, pb .001). Eachitem was answered on a 7-point scale (e.g., 1=0 months suspension,7=12+ months suspension; 1=slightly unfair, 7=extremely unfair).Each pair of items was averaged to form a composite measure.

Results and discussion

Con!rming a general preference for the young relative to the old, aSign Test showed that the participants recommended more budgetcuts for the geriatrics department (M=5.71, Median=6, SD=2.03)

Fig. 1. Effect of the victim's age on punishment reactions as a function of the victim'sinnocence (Study 2). Higher values indicate more recommended punishment for theharm doer. Error bars indicate 95% con!dence intervals of the means.

1346 M.J. Callan et al. / Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 48 (2012) 1343–1349

than the pediatrics department (M=2.78, Median=2, SD=1.91),Z=8.13, pb .001.

Moderation analysesFollowingAiken andWest (1991), in separate analyses,we regressed

perceived injustice and punishment reactions onto mean-centeredgeriatric budget cut ranks, an effect coded variable representing the vic-tim age manipulation, and their cross-product interaction term. Shownin Figs. 2 and 3, analyses revealed the predicted victim age X ageism in-teractions for both perceived injustice (B=.18, SE=.06), t(116)=2.91,p=.004, sr2=.07, and punishment reactions (B=.22, SE=.07),t(116)=3.24, p=.002, sr2=.08.

Follow-up analyses showed that the suffering of the older(vs. younger) victim was perceived as less unjust at 1 SD above themean of ageism (B=.59, SE=.18), t(116)=3.33, p=.001, but not at 1SDbelow themean (B=!.14, p=.42). Similarly, theparticipantswantedto punish the technician lesswhen the victimwas older (vs. younger) at 1SD above the mean of ageism (B=.80, SE=.20), t(116)=4.08, pb .001,but not at 1 SD below themean (B=!.10, p=.60). Analyzed differently,ageism signi!cantly predicted perceived injustice (B=!.25, SE=.09,p=.008) and punishment reactions (B=!.39, SE=.10, pb .001) whenthe victim was older, but not when the victim was younger (ps=.18and .52, respectively). These results suggest that a bias against the elderlyonly predicted perceived injustice and punishment reactions when thevictim was older.

Similar regression analyses using the pediatric budget cut rank-ordersdid not reveal statistically signi!cant victim age X pediatric budget cutrank-order interactions for either perceived injustice (p=.24) or punish-ment reactions (p=.36). These results suggest that the effects reportedabove are due to people's biases against the elderly rather than theirpreferences for younger individuals.

Moderated mediation analysesHaving established that ageism (geriatric budget cuts) moderates

the effect of the age manipulation on perceived injustice, we usedPreacher, Rucker, and Hayes's (2007) MODMED SPSS bootstrappingmacro (Model 2) to test the prediction that the indirect effect of theage manipulation on punishment reactions through perceived injus-tice would be conditional upon levels of ageism. For these analyses,the 95% BCa CIs of the conditional indirect effects were obtainedthrough repeated bootstrapping tests at several values of ageism.Shown in Table 1, analyses revealed a signi!cant indirect effect ofthe age manipulation on punishment reactions through perceived

injustice at values above the mean of ageism, but not at values at orbelow the mean. Thus, as predicted, perceived injustice mediatedthe effect of the victim's age on punishment reactions more stronglyat higher levels of ageism.

General discussion

Ageism is an issue of increasing social concern because the worldpopulation is getting older. As Kite et al. (2005) concluded in theirmeta-analysis on attitudes toward younger and older adults, “perhapsit is time to get aside the question of whether ageism exists and con-tinue to explore when and where the consequences are most severe”(pg. 259). The three studies reported here examined one such conse-quence: people's reactions to the fortuitous suffering of older versusyounger individuals. We demonstrated that observers perceive the suf-fering of an older (vs. younger) person as less unfair, which, in turn, in-"uences punishment reactions. In Study 1, the effect of a victim's age onreduced punishment for the harm doer was mediated by perceived in-justice. In Study 2,we bolstered our claim that perceived injustice is onemechanism through which a victim's age affects reduced punishmentby showing that the participants recommended less punishment for aharm doer when the victim was older (vs. younger) only when thevictim was innocent (i.e., when the participants' justice motive washeightened). In Study 3, individual differences in ageism moderatedthe effect of a victim's age on perceived injustice and punishment

Fig. 2. Effect of the victim's age on perceived injustice as a function of individual differencesin ageism (rank-order of the recommended budget cuts to the geriatrics department)(Study 3). Higher values indicate greater perceived injustice.

Fig. 3. Effect of the victim's age on punishment reactions as a function of individual dif-ferences in ageism (rank-order of recommended budget cuts to the geriatrics depart-ment) (Study 3). Higher values indicate more recommended punishment for theharm doer.

Table 1Bootstrapped indirect effects of the manipulation of victim age on punishment throughperceived injustice at speci!ed values of ageism (ranked cuts to the geriatricsdepartment).

95% BCA con!-dence interval

Budget cuts to geriatrics Point estimate SE LL UL

!1.0 SD !.07 .09 !.25 .09!0.5 SD .03 .07 !.11 .17Mean .13 .08 !.01 .28+0.5 SD .23 .09 .06 .43+1.0 SD .33 .12 .11 .59

Note. BCA = bias-corrected and accelerated. LL = lower limit. UL = upper limit. Tenthousand bootstrapped resamples were used for each test at each speci!ed value of geri-atrics budget cuts. Higher values indicatemore recommendedbudget cuts to the geriatricsdepartment.

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reactions, such that only participants higher in ageism perceived thesuffering of an older (vs. younger) victim as less unfair and recom-mended less punishment. Moreover, perceived injustice mediatedthe effect of the victim's age on punishment reactions more stronglyat higher levels of ageism.

Our work also discounts perceived similarity or in-group identi!ca-tion as possible explanations for these effects by showing that: (a) theeffect of a victim's age on punishment justice occurred only when thevictim was innocent (Study 2), and (b) bias against the elderly onlypredicted perceived unfairness and punishment judgments when thevictim was older (i.e., there was not a corresponding positive bias to-wards the younger victim as a function of bias against the elderly).Furthermore, although our samples were relatively younger overall(Mage=26, range=16–71), analyses combining the data across ourthree studies when the victim was innocent did not reveal any Partici-pant Age X Victim Age interactions on perceived injustice (p=.15) orpunishment reactions (p=.75). If anything, our older participantsshowed the predicted age bias effects more strongly. There were alsono signi!cant interactions with participant sex in similar analyses(all ps> .33). Processes of in-group identi!cation are, of course,relevant to both aging and ageism (see Kite & Wagner, 2002), butour results suggest that they do not apply to people's reactions tothe fortuitous suffering of older versus younger individuals.

We believe that these !ndings advance justice theorymore generallybecause they extend previous research examining people's perceptionsof injustice when devalued versus valued groups and individuals areharmed (e.g., Chasteen &Madey, 2003; Correia et al., 2007). Speci!cally,our research demonstrates two novel effects: (a) people's reduced desireto punish someone who fortuitously caused an older (vs. younger)person to suffer re"ected their concerns about justice and fairnessand (b) themediating role of perceived injustice in the effect of a victim'sage on punishment reactionswasmoderated by individual differences inage bias.

There are, of course, limitations to the current research. First, thegeneralizability of our !ndings to behavioral measures of ageism(e.g., direct discrimination) and more impactful situations than shortvignettes (see Lerner, 2003) require further investigation. Second, ourparticipants were given little individuating information about thevictim, which is also a factor that reduces age-related biases (Cuddy &Fiske, 2002; Kite et al., 2005). For instance, the effects that we observedmay depend on whether people are focused more on the negativestereotypes of the elderly (weak, incompetent) than the positivestereotypes (friendly, warm; Cuddy, Norton, & Fiske, 2005). Finally,our participants were drawn from a Western, individualistic societywhere ageism may be more prevalent (but see Bugental & Hehman,2007). On the basis of justice motive theory, we would predict thatany characteristic of the victim or observer that leads to amore positiveevaluation of an older victim (e.g., individuating information) wouldproduce corresponding increases in perceived injustice and increasesin punishment. Indeed, our Study 3 !ndings are notable in this regard:the participants who valued the elderly more were just as concernedabout the injustice of the elderly victim's suffering as the youngervictim's suffering.

We believe that these !ndings are noteworthy, in part, because theymay have implications for legal decision-making. Speci!cally, to theextent that a victim's age serves as an “extralegal” factor in punitivejudgments (see Kapardis, 2010), people may show more leniency to-ward an offender if the victimwas older versus younger. Here, an elderlyvictimmay become secondarily victimized if the harm doer receives lesspunishment than (s)he would have had the victim been younger.

Appendix A. Supplementary data

Supplementary data to this article can be found online athttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2012.07.003.

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