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

Palliative care, COVID-19, and the suffering quotient

OBJECTIVES

The COVID-19 pandemic presented many challenges for patients with palliative care needs and their care providers. During the early days of the pandemic, visitors were restricted on our palliative care units. These restrictions separated patients from their families and caregivers and led to considerable suffering for patients, families, and health-care providers. Using clinical vignettes that illustrate the suffering caused by visiting restrictions during the pandemic, the introduction of a new concept to help predict when health-care providers might be moved to advocate for their patients is introduced.

METHODS

We report 3 cases of patients admitted to a palliative care unit during the COVID-19 pandemic and discuss the visiting restrictions placed on their families. In reviewing the cases, we coined a new concept, the "Suffering Quotient" (SQ), to help understand why clinical staff might be motivated to advocate for an exemption to the visiting restrictions in one situation and not another.

RESULTS

This paper uses 3 cases to illustrate a new concept that we have coined the Suffering Quotient. The Suffering Quotient (SQ) = Perceived Individual (or small group) Suffering/Perceived Population Suffering. This paper also explores factors that influence perceived individual suffering (the numerator) and perceived population suffering (the denominator) from the perspective of the health-care provider.

SIGNIFICANCE OF RESULTS

The SQ provides a means of weighing perceived patient and family suffering against perceived contextual population suffering. It reflects the threshold beyond which health-care providers, or other outside observers, are moved to advocate for the patient and ultimately how far they might be prepared to go. The SQ offers a potential means of predicting observer responses when they are exposed to multiple suffering scenarios, such as those that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gender, Generations, and Guilt: Defendant Gender and Age Affect Jurors' Decisions and Perceptions in an Intimate Partner Homicide Trial

Using the context of an intimate partner homicide trial, the study explored the effects of defendant gender and age on mock-jurors' verdicts, sentences, and culpability ratings-and whether defendant credibility and juror anger mediate these effects. The study used a 2 (Defendant Gender: male vs. female) × 3 (Defendant Age: 25, 45, or 65 years) between-subjects design. Participants (N = 513 community members) completed the experiment online. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the six Defendant Gender × Age Conditions. Participants read the trial transcripts that included the age and gender manipulations, provided verdicts and sentences, and completed the following measures: culpability, anger, credibility, and manipulation checks. Consistent with our hypotheses mock-jurors were more likely to find the male defendant guilty and give him longer sentences than the female defendant. Additionally, when the defendant was male (vs. female) mock-jurors provided higher anger ratings and rated the defendant as more culpable in the victim's death. Also consistent with our hypotheses, mock-jurors were more likely to find the youngest defendant guilty and view him as more culpable and less credible than the oldest defendant. The mechanisms responsible for jurors' biased decisions varied as a function of the extra-legal variable (defendant gender vs. age). The defendant age effect was mediated by defendant credibility and the gender effect by juror anger. A defendant's right to a fair trial is dependent on a court's ability to limit extra-legal variables from influencing jurors' decisions. Understanding the mechanism responsible for such bias is required before the courts can effectively remedy bias.

Perceptions of School Shooters Depend on Prior Criminal Record but Not Targeted Age Group

Individuals with a prior criminal record are viewed more negatively than those with a clean record, which is often exemplified in harsher sentencing, higher risk assessment ratings, and higher psychopathy ratings. However, what has not yet been explored is whether the age of the targeted victim population (children vs. adults) affects these perceptions. Given that school shooting incidents are a current societal issue, this study aimed to investigate whether the presence of a prior criminal record and age of the victim population affect decisions regarding school shooting offenders. Participants were exposed to school shooting vignettes describing the offender (prior criminal record vs. not) and targeted victims (children vs. adults). They were asked to determine an appropriate sentence and rate the offender's risk of future violence and psychopathy score. Violence risk ratings (measured by the Historical Clinical Risk Management-20 [HCR-20]) and psychopathy ratings (measured by the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised [PCL-R]) depended on the presence of a prior criminal record, such that those with a prior criminal record were perceived as a greater violence risk and as exhibiting more psychopathic traits than their clean-record counterparts. However, punishment severity did not depend on prior criminal record. Likewise, age group of the targeted population had no effect on participants' perceptions of school shooting offenders. These findings contribute to our knowledge of how offender- and incident-specific factors affect perceptions, which has important implications for understanding which factors affect impartiality within our criminal justice system.

Scoping Review on Ageism against Younger Populations

Systematic efforts have been carried out to study ageism against older populations. Less is known about ageism against younger populations, including how it is defined, how it manifests, its effects, and how it can be addressed. A scoping review was conducted aimed at identifying available evidence on these topics. A comprehensive search strategy was used across thirteen databases, including PubMed, EMBASE, and CINAHL. Records were screened by two independent reviewers. Data extraction was done by one rater and independently reviewed by a second rater. Of the 9270 records identified, 263 were eligible for inclusion. Most of the evidence focused on the manifestation of ageism (86%), followed by a focus on the determinants of ageism (17%), available interventions to address ageism (9%), and the effects of ageism (5%). This study points to the inconsistent terminology used to describe ageism against younger populations and the relatively limited theoretical rationale that guides existing studies. It also highlights key research gaps and points to the strengths of existing research.

Victims, Vignettes, and Videos: Meta-Analytic and Experimental Evidence That Emotional Impact Enhances the Derogation of Innocent Victims

Research during the 1960s found that observers could be moved enough by an innocent victim's suffering to derogate their character. However, recent research has produced inconsistent evidence for this effect. We conducted the first meta-analysis (k = 55) of the experimental literature on the victim derogation effect to test the hypothesis that it varies as a function of the emotional impactfulness of the context for observers. We found that studies which employed more impactful contexts (e.g., that were real and vivid) reported larger derogation effects. Emotional impact was, however, confounded by year of appearance, such that older studies reported larger effects and were more impactful. To disentangle the role of emotional impact, in two primary experiments we found that more impactful contexts increased the derogation of an innocent victim. Overall, the findings advance our theoretical understanding of the contexts in which observers are more likely to derogate an innocent victim.

Elder sexual abuse and implicit agism: examining the warm-incompetent bias among mock jurors

Implicit ageist beliefs about the warmth and incompetence of older adults may influence jurors' perceptions and judgments of an older adult's competence in legal cases hinging on capacity and consent, including elder sexual abuse. However, little is known about the nuances of implicit agism in elder sexual abuse cases, and if it can be attenuated. The current study proposed to address these gaps via a randomized vignette design administered to a community sample of 391 US adults. Mock juror participants evaluated an elder sexual abuse case involving an older married couple, in which the victim had dementia. Results suggest that implicit agism was present among mock jurors, consistent with a warm-incompetence bias, and was predictive of mock jurors' guilt ratings. Age- and dementia-relevant jury instructions and mock juror gender were not found to be predictive of guilt ratings. Implicit agism among jurors should be addressed to reduce the potential for implicit age bias to affect elder sexual abuse cases.

Derogating Innocent Victims: The Effects of Relative Versus Absolute Character Judgments

Drawing on just-world theory and research into the suppression and justification of prejudice, we propose that the use of relative compared with absolute measures of an innocent victim's character enables observers to derogate the victim without transparently violating social norms or values proscribing derogation. In Study 1, we found that positive feelings expressed toward victims mirrored social norms proscribing negative reactions toward them. In Studies 2a, 2b, and 3, innocent victims were evaluated more negatively when ratings were made using relative (i.e., compared with evaluations of the average student or the self) versus absolute scales. In Study 4, this effect of scale type on derogation was stronger for people higher in the motivation to avoid prejudiced reactions to victims. Relative judgments seem to allow individuals to enact their counternormative motivation to derogate the victim under the cover of ambiguity and ostensibly rationally motivated social comparison processes.

Changing negative stereotypes regarding aging in undergraduate nursing students

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this study was to explore the modification of stereotypes and myths regarding aging among third-year nursing students before and after undergoing an Aging Nursing course.

METHOD

A within-subject repeated-measures descriptive study was conducted. The Negative Stereotypes Questionnaire about Aging (CENVE) was used.

RESULTS

The overall prevalence of negative stereotypes was 62.0% pre-intervention (P1) and 12.3% post-intervention (P2) measured; these values were 63.5% (P1) and 9.2% (P2) for the health factor, 43.1% (P1) and 4.9% (P2) for the motivation and social factors and 58.3% (P1) and 3.8% (P2) for the character-personality factor. Paired Student's t tests confirmed that the differences were statistically significant.

CONCLUSIONS

There was a high prevalence of negative stereotypes toward aging among the nursing students, even though they had conducted clinical practice and were in their third year. The course was demonstrated to be effective in modifying these stereotypes. The proper training of future professionals markedly contributes the dispensation of proper care and the eradication of ageism, which remains prevalent in the healthcare system.

Getting "just deserts" or seeing the "silver lining": the relation between judgments of immanent and ultimate justice

People can perceive misfortunes as caused by previous bad deeds (immanent justice reasoning) or resulting in ultimate compensation (ultimate justice reasoning). Across two studies, we investigated the relation between these types of justice reasoning and identified the processes (perceptions of deservingness) that underlie them for both others (Study 1) and the self (Study 2). Study 1 demonstrated that observers engaged in more ultimate (vs. immanent) justice reasoning for a "good" victim and greater immanent (vs. ultimate) justice reasoning for a "bad" victim. In Study 2, participants' construals of their bad breaks varied as a function of their self-worth, with greater ultimate (immanent) justice reasoning for participants with higher (lower) self-esteem. Across both studies, perceived deservingness of bad breaks or perceived deservingness of ultimate compensation mediated immanent and ultimate justice reasoning respectively.

When idols look into the future: fair treatment modulates the affective forecasting error in talent show candidates

People's affective forecasts are often inaccurate because they tend to overestimate how they will feel after an event. As life decisions are often based on affective forecasts, it is crucial to find ways to manage forecasting errors. We examined the impact of a fair treatment on forecasting errors in candidates in a Belgian reality TV talent show. We found that perceptions of fair treatment increased the forecasting error for losers (a negative audition decision) but decreased it for winners (a positive audition decision). For winners, this effect was even more pronounced when candidates were highly invested in their self-view as a future pop idol whereas for losers, the effect was more pronounced when importance was low. The results in this study point to a potential paradox between maximizing happiness and decreasing forecasting errors. A fair treatment increased the forecasting error for losers, but actually made them happier.