The effect of gender in the perception of elder physical abuse in court.

Two experiments investigated mock jurors' perceptions of elder abuse (EA) in a physical assault case. In Experiment 1, participants read a fictional criminal trial summary of a physical assault case in which the alleged victim was 66, 76, or 86 years old. In Experiment 2, the age of the alleged victim was 76 years old, but the gender of the alleged victim and the gender of the defendant were crossed. The results of the experiments showed that women believed the alleged victim more and rendered a guilty verdict more often than men. Overall, the alleged victim was believed more than the defendant regardless of the age of the alleged victim, and most verdicts were guilty. These results are discussed in terms of the factors that affect perceptions of alleged victims of EA in court.