Moral and social reasoning and perspective taking in later life: a longitudinal study.

In this study 27 older adults (ages 64-80) and 23 middle-aged adults (ages 35-54) were tested for moral stage, integrative complexity of social reasoning, and perspective-taking levels twice over a 4-year period. Moral reasoning stage levels did not change over time for either age group. Older adults, but not the middle-aged, showed a significant decline over time in level of moral perspective taking. Complexity of reasoning about several interpersonal social issues declined modestly in both age groups. More social-cognitive support, a higher education level, and better self-reported health were all found to be protective factors in forestalling declines in mature adults' sociocognitive reasoning, consistent with other research on cognitive measures in later life.