Are older adults less accurate than younger adults at judging trustworthiness from faces?

Details

Giving someone a more favorable rating does not necessarily mean judging them less accurately. Older adults generally rate faces as more trustworthy than younger adults do. These studies examined whether that tendency meant their judgments were less accurate, using evidence beyond facial impressions as comparison measures.

Studies 1 and 2 used behavior in a trust game as the reference indicator, while Study 3 used political corruption conviction records. In analyses of individual participants, older adults were more accurate in Studies 1 and 3. Study 2 found comparable accuracy, not a clear advantage for either age group.

Younger adults tended to judge others as untrustworthy. Older adults did not show this negative tendency in Studies 1 and 2, and showed only a mild tendency toward judging others as trustworthy in Study 3.

The findings challenge the idea that older adults’ more favorable impressions necessarily mean less accurate judgments. However, age differences, particularly in accuracy, became less evident when differences among the faces were considered. The results concern the specific comparison measures used; they do not establish that faces reliably reveal trustworthiness in general or that older adults are less vulnerable to real-world fraud.