Following your heart or your head: focusing on emotions versus information differentially influences the decisions of younger and older adults

Facing the Emotional Barriers to Colorectal Cancer Screening. The Roles of Reappraisal and Situation Selection

BACKGROUND

Disgust, embarrassment, and fear can hinder the attendance of colorectal cancer (CRC) screening. However, individuals can respond to these emotions differently. The present study tested whether reappraising a negative stimulus versus avoiding a negative stimulus is associated with age; whether these two emotion regulation strategies (reappraisal and situation selection) moderate the effects of disgust, embarrassment and fear on CRC screening intention; and the efficacy of a message based on participants' preferred emotion regulation strategy.

METHODS

We recruited 483 Italian participants (aged 40-84 years) through snowball sampling. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions differing for a message promoting CRC screening with an affective lever, a cognitive lever, both levers or none. Key variables included emotion regulation strategies, emotional barriers and intention to get screened.

RESULTS

The preference for reappraisal over situation selection increased with age. Reappraisal neutralized the effect of disgust on CRC screening intention. The combined message with both affective and cognitive levers increased CRC screening intention (b = 0.27, β = 0.11, SE = 0.13 p = .049), whereas reading the message based only on the affective (b = 0.16, β = 0.06, SE = 0.14 p = .258) or the cognitive (b = 0.22, β = 0.09, SE = 0.14 p = .107) lever was not effective.

CONCLUSIONS

Communication campaigns should support the activation of a reappraisal strategy of emotion control, and messages promoting CRC screening should highlight both the instrumental (i.e., early detection) and affective (i.e., peace of mind) benefits of attendance.

Health appeal appraisal and memory in older adults: the effects of goal and valence framing

Relative to younger adults, older adults have a preference and memory advantage for appeals framed to focus on emotion goals (e.g., loving or caring) or positive outcomes (e.g., benefits of health behaviors). Here we examined whether combining goal (emotion vs. future) and valence framing (positive vs. negative) could optimize older adults' appraisal and memory for health appeals. Sixty younger (ages 18-29) and 60 older (ages 64-87) adults viewed, rated and recalled one of the four versions of a health pamphlet, each with a unique combination of goal and valence framing. The results showed a memory advantage for pamphlets focusing on emotion over future goals in both age groups. Older adults also showed a more favorable appraisal and a weak memory advantage for the positively- and emotion-framed pamphlet, relative to younger adults. Thus combining goal and valence framing could optimize the effectiveness of older adults' health appeal communication..

Communicating risk: How relevant and irrelevant probabilistic information influences risk perception in medical decision-making

Patients rely on knowing potential risks before accepting medical treatments, but risk perception can be distorted by cognitive biases and irrelevant information. We examined the interactive effects of subjective processes, objective knowledge, and demographic characteristics on how individuals estimate risks when provided with relevant and irrelevant probabilistic information. Participants read medical scenarios describing potential adverse effects associated with declining and accepting preventative treatment, as well as the objective likelihood of experiencing adverse effects associated with one of these two courses of action. We found that the perceived negativity of outcomes influenced perceptions of risk regardless of whether relevant probabilities were available and that the use of affect heuristics to estimate risk increased with age. Introducing objective estimates ameliorated age-related increases in affective distortions. Sensitivity to relevant probabilities increased with greater perceived outcome severity and was greater for men than for women. We conclude that relevant objective information may reduce the propensity to conflate outcome severity with likelihood and that medical judgments of risk vary depending on exposure to relevant and irrelevant probabilities. Implications for how medical professionals should communicate risk information to patients are considered.

Susceptibility to default effects does not differ by age

Decision makers are more likely to passively accept than to actively reject preselected default options. Age differences in such "default effects" have not been systematically examined, but prior research reports age-related variation in several known determinants of default effects suggesting that they may be more common in older as compared to younger adults. To address this question, a representative life span sample (N = 500; Mage = 49.90, SDage = 19.34; 51% female, 49% male; 67% non-Hispanic White) responded to a preregistered online study. Participants completed a default effect task comprising two conditions, one requiring opt-out and one requiring opt-in decisions (i.e., 15 vs. 0 preselected features each). Susceptibility to defaults was assessed as the discrepancy between the number of features selected within each condition. In addition, we collected data on known determinants of default effects (i.e., perceived endowment, endorsement, ease, experience making similar choices, importance of the choice, and affective responses to the choice). Finally, we screened demographic background, personality, socioemotional and health status, and cognitive ability. Susceptibility to default effects was evident both at the individual and the group level. Unlike hypothesized, older age did not predict greater susceptibility to defaults, and older adults were less likely to endorse determinants of default effect compliance. Of the covariates assessed, only identifying as non-Hispanic White, greater perceived endorsement, greater perceived ease, and lower perceived importance of making the right choice predicted decision makers' susceptibility to default effects. Thus, our findings suggest that susceptibility to decision defaults does not vary by age. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Emotion, Aging, and Decision Making: A State of the Art Mini-Review

Over the past few decades, interest has begun to surge in understanding the role of emotion in decision making, and more recently in studies across the adult life span. Relevant to age-related changes in decision making, theoretical perspectives in judgment and decision making draw critical distinctions between deliberative versus intuitive/affective processes, as well as integral versus incidental affect. Empirical findings demonstrate the central role of affect in various decision-related domains such as framing and risk taking. To situate this review within an adult life-span context, we focus on theoretical perspectives in adult development regarding emotion and motivation. As a result of age differences in deliberative and emotional processes, taking a life-span perspective is critical to advance a comprehensive and grounded understanding of the role of affect in decision making. Age-related shifts in information processing from negative toward positive material also have consequential implications. By taking a life-span perspective, not only will decision theorists and researchers benefit, but so too will practitioners who encounter individuals of various ages as they make consequential decisions.

Information Avoidance in Consumer Choice: Do Avoidance Tendencies and Motives Vary by Age?

Prior research suggests that older adults seek less information in consumer choices than younger adults do. However, it remains unclear if intentional information avoidance plays a role in such effects. To test this possibility, we examined age differences in deliberate information avoidance in consumer decisions and explored a range of potential motives. Adult lifespan samples completed two pre-registered online studies, which assessed information avoidance using a slider scale (Study 1, N =195) and a forced-choice task (Study 2, N = 500). In Study 1, age differences in information avoidance were not significant, but methodological limitations could have obscured age effects. In Study 2, age was associated with higher information avoidance. Avoidance was higher among participants who reported that the information would not impact decision preferences, would elicit more negative affect, and would be useless. Although age was associated with lower perceived impact on decision preferences and lower concerns about affective responses, age differences in information avoidance remained significant when these variables were statistically controlled. In conclusion, in the context of consumer choices, deliberate information avoidance is higher among older consumers. Thus, interventions to promote the acquisition of relevant information would benefit from being tailored to the target age group.

How negative emotions influence arithmetic performance: a comparison of young and older adults

We investigated the influence of negative emotions on arithmetic problem-solving performance and age-related differences therein. Participants were asked to verify complex multiplication problems that were either true (e.g., 4 × 26 = 104) or false (e.g., 5 × 41 = 201). Half the problems were five problems (e.g., 5 × 28 = 140) and half were non-five problems (e.g., 6 × 36 = 216). False five problems violated the five-rule, the parity-rule, both rules, or no rule. Problems were preceded by emotionally neutral or negative pictures. For true problems, emotions impaired performance while verifying non-five problems in young adults only and while verifying five problems in older adults only. For false five problems, negative emotions influenced young adults’ performance while verifying both-rule and no-rule violation problems but not when verifying parity-rule violation or five-rule violation problems. Negative emotions did not influence older adults’ performance whichever false five problems they solved. These findings suggest that negative emotions may change the mechanisms that participants use to solve arithmetic problems and that emotions influence young and older adults via different mechanisms.

Age differences in facial trustworthiness perception are diminished by affective processing

While perceptions of facial trustworthiness usually serve as our first references for social interactions, these impressions may ultimately turn out to be inaccurate or unreliable. Compared with younger adults, older adults generally face a higher risk of fraudulent exploitation; the characteristics of older adults' facial trustworthiness perception may play an important role in revealing the underlying mechanism of their being cheated. Previous studies have demonstrated that, in comparison with their younger counterparts, older adults tend to overestimate strangers' facial trustworthiness. In the present study, two experiments were conducted, aiming at testing (1) the age-related differences in facial trustworthiness perceptions (Experiment 1) and (2) whether any interventions (e.g., encouraging more deliberative processing or more affective processing) could be applied to help older adults reduce their tendency to overestimate trustworthiness, thus reducing their facial trustworthiness ratings to a lower level (Experiment 2). The results indicated that (1) consistent with previous studies, older adults provided higher trustworthiness ratings for unfamiliar faces than did younger adults (Experiment 1) and (2) more importantly, affective processing instead of deliberative processing could benefit older adults in their assessments of facial trustworthiness, leading them toward demonstrating similar-not significantly higher-levels of trust toward strange faces as younger adults (Experiment 2). A possible mechanism was offered, suggesting that affective processing might help older adults to detect negative cues in unfamiliar faces.

Older and younger adult definitions of emotion terms: a mixed-method content analysis

OBJECTIVES

Conceptualizations of emotions might evolve over the course of adult development as motivations shift, but there are gaps in knowledge regarding these changes. This mixed-methods study tested theoretical predictions pertaining to age group differences in conceptualizations of emotions.

METHOD

University students (N = 210, M age = 20.1 years) and community-dwelling older adults (N = 90, M age = 72.5 years) participated in three survey studies (2016-2018) conducted in person, online, or via mail and provided written narrative definitions for 11 emotion words. Responses were coded for valence, arousal, time frame, reference to self, reference to social contacts, and nature of response (i.e. example or definition). Code frequencies were compared for younger and older adults via odds ratio and logistic regression analyses.

RESULTS

Younger and older adults used many of the same words in definitions of emotion terms. Older participants more often referenced situational examples in their definitions than younger participants. As expected, older adults used more low arousal language, referenced the 'self,' and included other persons more in their emotion descriptions than younger persons. Unexpectedly, younger participants used more positive language in descriptions of some positive emotions.

CONCLUSIONS

Descriptions of emotion terms might serve a self-regulatory function, such as to facilitate low arousal emotion experiences for older adults or to illustrate important values, such as the greater importance of other persons to emotion experiences for older than younger adults.

Age differences in intuitive moral decision-making: Associations with inter-network neural connectivity

Positions of power involving moral decision-making are often held by older adults (OAs). However, little is known about age differences in moral decision-making and the intrinsic organization of the aging brain. In this study, younger adults (YAs; n = 117, Mage = 22.11) and OAs (n = 82, Mage = 67.54) made decisions in hypothetical moral dilemmas and completed resting-state multi-echo functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans. Relative to YAs, OAs were more likely to endorse deontological decisions (i.e., decisions based on adherence to a moral principle or duty), but only when the choice was immediately compelling or intuitive. By contrast, there was no difference between YAs and OAs in utilitarian decisions (i.e., decisions aimed at maximizing collective well-being) when the utilitarian choice was intuitive. Enhanced connections between the posterior medial core of the default network (pmDN) and the dorsal attention network, and overall reduced segregation of pmDN from the rest of the brain, were associated with this increased deontological-intuitive moral decision-making style in OAs. The present study contributes to our understanding of age differences in decision-making styles by taking into account the intuitiveness of the moral choice, and it offers further insights as to how age differences in intrinsic brain connectivity relate to these distinct moral decision-making styles in YAs and OAs. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Is Reliance on the Affect Heuristic associated with Age?

OBJECTIVES

With age, decision makers rely more on heuristic and affect-based processing. However, age differences have not been quantified with respect to the affect heuristic which derives judgments based on positive and negative feelings towards stimuli and concepts. The present study examined whether reliance on the affect heuristic is associated with age, whether these patterns vary by task type, and which covariates account for age effects.

METHOD

In a pre-registered study, an adult lifespan sample (N = 195, 21 - 90 years, Mage = 52.95, 50% female, 71% non-Hispanic White) completed a battery of cognitive, personality, and socioemotional covariates as well as three established affect heuristic tasks: (1) a risk-benefit task, (2) a dread-inference task, and (3) an affect-impact task. Reliance on affect was indexed through (1) a negative relationship between perceived food risks and benefits, (2) a positive relationship between feelings of dread and statistical inferences about mortality risks, and (3) a positive relationship between affective responses and impact judgments when evaluating catastrophes.

RESULTS

For all three tasks, usage of the affect heuristic was documented at the group and the individual level. Contrary to hypotheses, age was not associated with affect heuristic use for any of the tasks. Affect heuristic indices did not correlate across tasks and showed no consistent associations with the covariates.

DISCUSSION

Results suggest that the use of affect-based heuristics is context- or stimulus-dependent rather than a stable, age-associated trait. Further research is needed to validate the present results across additional domains, tasks, and stimulus types.

The role of cognition and reinforcement sensitivity in older adult decision-making under explicit risk conditions

Introduction: Previous research has suggested that individual differences in executive functions, memory and reinforcement sensitivity are associated with performance on behavioral decision-making tasks. Decision-making performance may also decline with age, however there is a lack of research on the interplay of cognitive and affective processes, and their impact on older adult decision-making. This study examined associations between executive functions, memory and reinforcement sensitivity on the Game of Dice Task (a measure of decision-making under explicit risk) among older adults.Method: One thousand and two older adults without cognitive impairment (aged 72-78 years) participated as part of an Australian longitudinal cohort study (the Personality and Total Health Through Life study). Decision-making sub-types were identified through cluster analysis and multinomial logistic regression was used to assess associations with measures of cognition and reinforcement sensitivity.Results: Cluster analysis identified three decision-making sub-types, which we label "advantageous," "disadvantageous" and "switching." Multivariate analyses found that relative to the mid-performing "switching" sub-type, advantageous decision-makers were more likely to be younger, male and have higher scores on a test of verbal learning. Disadvantageous decision-makers were more likely to have poorer scores on some components of executive function (set shifting, but not working memory or inhibitory control), although this effect was partly attenuated by a measure of reinforcement sensitivity (reward responsiveness).Conclusion: These results indicate that specific components of learning and executive functions are influential in decision-making under explicit risk among a sample of older adults.

Leveraging goals to incentivize healthful behaviors across adulthood

Despite abundant evidence for the benefits of physical activity on aging trajectories, older Americans remain largely inactive. The present study was designed to examine age differences in responsiveness to financial incentives to increase walking. Grounded in socioemotional selectivity theory, we examined the effectiveness of financial incentives that varied in prosociality. Three types of incentives were presented to community-residing adults 18-92 years of age (N = 450). Participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 5 conditions: personal, loved one, charity, choice, or a no-incentive control group. Average daily step counts were measured using pedometers during a baseline week, during the incentivized period, and after the incentivized period ended. Overall, financial incentives significantly increased walking compared to a control group. Whereas personal incentives were effective regardless of age, incentives to earn for charities were starkly more effective in older adults than younger adults. Moreover, 1 week after the incentivized period ended, older participants were more likely to maintain increased step counts, whereas younger people reverted to baseline step counts. Findings suggest that financial incentives can increase walking in a wide age range and that charitable incentives may be especially effective in health interventions targeting older adults. The importance of aligning incentives with age-related goals is discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Neuroticism Predicts Reasoning Performance in Young but Not Older Adults

Objective: This study was designed to explore age differences in the relationship of neuroticism with reasoning performance in a representative adult sample.Method: A probability sample of 242 adults (range 25-75 years; M age = 47.57 years) from the Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS) Boston Study of Management Processes were measured on personality and cognition. Using Raven's Progressive Matrices Test as the dependent measure of reasoning, age and neuroticism were entered as independent variables into a hierarchical regression analysis with education and basic cognitive processes (processing speed and working memory) as control variables.Results: Age (younger) and neuroticism (lower) positively predicted reasoning performance. These main effects were further qualified by an age X neuroticism interaction. Younger adults low in neuroticism performed significantly better on reasoning than those high in neuroticism, whereas the relationship of neuroticism with reasoning was not significant for the middle-aged and older adults.Conclusions: Neuroticism affects reasoning performance in young adults but not older adults. Age-related improvements in emotional regulation are suggested as a mechanism for this relationship.

Affective Working Memory: An Integrative Psychological Construct

When people ruminate about an unfortunate encounter with a loved one, savor a long-sought accomplishment, or hold in mind feelings from a marvelous or regretfully tragic moment, what mental processes orchestrate these psychological phenomena? Such experiences typify how affect interacts with working memory, which we posit can occur in three primary ways: emotional experiences can modulate working memory, working memory can modulate emotional experiences, and feelings can be the mental representations maintained by working memory. We propose that this last mode constitutes distinct neuropsychological processes that support the integration of particular cognitive and affective processes: affective working memory. Accumulating behavioral and neural evidence suggests that affective working memory processes maintain feelings and are partially separable from their cognitive working memory counterparts. Affective working memory may be important for elucidating the contribution of affect to decision making, preserved emotional processes in later life, and mechanisms of psychological dysfunction in clinical disorders. We review basic behavioral, neuroscience, and clinical research that provides evidence for affective working memory; consider its theoretical implications; and evaluate its functional role within the psychological architecture. In sum, the perspective we advocate is that affective working memory is a fundamental mechanism of mind.

Using conversational agents to explain medication instructions to older adults

In an effort to guide the development of a computer agent (CA)-based adviser system that presents patient-centered language to older adults (e.g., medication instructions in portal environments or smartphone apps), we evaluated 360 older and younger adults' responses to medication information delivered by a set of CAs. We assessed patient memory for medication information, their affective responses to the information, their perception of the CA's teaching effectiveness and expressiveness, and their perceived level of similarity with each CA. Each participant saw CAs varying in appearance and levels of realism (Photo-realistic vs Cartoon vs Emoji, as control condition). To investigate the impact of affective cues on patients, we varied CA message framing, with effects described either as gains of taking or losses of not taking the medication. Our results corroborate the idea that CAs can produce a significant effect on older adults' learning in part by engendering social responses.

Curiosity in old age: A possible key to achieving adaptive aging

Curiosity is a fundamental part of human motivation that supports a variety of human intellectual behaviors ranging from early learning in children to scientific discovery. However, there has been little attention paid to the role of curiosity in aging populations. By bringing together broad but sparse neuroscientific and psychological literature on curiosity and related concepts (e.g., novelty seeking in older adults), we propose that curiosity, although it declines with age, plays an important role in maintaining cognitive function, mental health, and physical health in older adults. We identify the dopaminergic reward system and the noradrenergic system as the key brain systems implicated in curiosity processing and discuss how these brain systems contribute to the relationship between curiosity and adaptive aging.

Asian Americans respond less favorably to excitement (vs. calm)-focused physicians compared to European Americans

OBJECTIVES

Despite being considered a "model minority," Asian Americans report worse health care encounters than do European Americans. This may be due to affective mismatches between Asian American patients and their European American physicians. We predicted that because Asian Americans value excitement (vs. calm) less than European Americans, they will respond less favorably to excitement-focused (vs. calm) physicians.

METHOD

In Study 1, 198 European American, Chinese American, and Hong Kong Chinese community adults read a medical scenario and indicated their preference for an excitement-focused versus calm-focused physician. In Study 2, 81 European American and Asian American community college students listened to recommendations made by an excitement-focused or calm-focused physician in a video, and later attempted to recall the recommendations. In Study 3, 101 European American and Asian American middle-aged and older adults had multiple online encounters with an excitement-focused or calm-focused physician and then evaluated their physicians' trustworthiness, competence, and knowledge.

RESULTS

As predicted, Hong Kong Chinese preferred excitement-focused physicians less than European Americans, with Chinese Americans falling in the middle (Study 1). Similarly, Asian Americans remembered health information delivered by an excitement-focused physician less well than did European Americans (Study 2). Finally, Asian Americans evaluated an excitement-focused physician less positively than did European Americans (Study 3).

CONCLUSIONS

These findings suggest that while physicians who promote and emphasize excitement states may be effective with European Americans, they may be less so with Asian Americans and other ethnic minorities who value different affective states. (PsycINFO Database Record

Aging and Decision-Making: A Conceptual Framework for Future Research - A Mini-Review

Age differences in decision-making are of theoretical interest and have important practical implications, but relevant lines of work are distributed across multiple disciplines and often lack integration. The present review proposes an overarching conceptual framework with the aim of connecting disjointed aspects of this field of research. The framework builds on process models of decision-making and specifies potential mechanisms behind age effects as well as relevant moderators including task characteristics and contextual factors. After summarizing the extant literature for each aspect of the framework, compensatory mechanisms and ecological fit between different components of the model are considered. Implications for real-life decision-making, remaining research gaps, and directions for future research are discussed.

A multidisciplinary approach to designing and evaluating Electronic Medical Record portal messages that support patient self-care

We describe a project intended to improve the use of Electronic Medical Record (EMR) patient portal information by older adults with diverse numeracy and literacy abilities, so that portals can better support patient-centered care. Patient portals are intended to bridge patients and providers by ensuring patients have continuous access to their health information and services. However, they are underutilized, especially by older adults with low health literacy, because they often function more as information repositories than as tools to engage patients. We outline an interdisciplinary approach to designing and evaluating portal-based messages that convey clinical test results so as to support patient-centered care. We first describe a theory-based framework for designing effective messages for patients. This involves analyzing shortcomings of the standard portal message format (presenting numerical test results with little context to guide comprehension) and developing verbally, graphically, video- and computer agent-based formats that enhance context. The framework encompasses theories from cognitive and behavioral science (health literacy, fuzzy trace memory, behavior change) as well as computational/engineering approaches (e.g., image and speech processing models). We then describe an approach to evaluating whether the formats improve comprehension of and responses to the messages about test results, focusing on our methods. The approach combines quantitative (e.g., response accuracy, Likert scale responses) and qualitative (interview) measures, as well as experimental and individual difference methods in order to investigate which formats are more effective, and whether some formats benefit some types of patients more than others. We also report the results of two pilot studies conducted as part of developing the message formats.

Role of Emotion and Cognition on Age Differences in the Framing Effect

Framing effect studies indicate that individuals are risk averse for decisions framed as gains but risk-seeking for decisions framed as losses. Findings of age-related differences in susceptibility to framing are mixed. In the current study, we examined emotional arousal in two decision tasks (life saving vs. money gambling) to evaluate the effects of emotion on age differences in the framing effect. When cognitive abilities and styles were controlled, there was a framing effect in the younger group in the life-saving task, a high-emotional arousal task, while older adults did not display this classic framing effect pattern. They showed risk aversion in both positive and negative framing. Age differences existed in the framing effect. Conversely, younger and older adults in the money-gambling task both displayed the framing effect; there was no age difference. When the cognitive abilities were not controlled, the pattern of results in the high-emotional arousal task remained unchanged, while greater framing effects were found, from the perspective of effect size, for older than younger adults in the low-emotional arousal task. Limited cognitive resources would not hamper older adults’ performances when their emotional arousal was high. However, older adults with low-level emotional arousal were more susceptible than younger adults to framing because of declining cognitive capacities. This implied the importance of emotion in older adults’ decision making and supported the selective engagement hypothesis.

Age Differences in Consumer Decision Making under Option Framing: From the Motivation Perspective

Option framing effect is the phenomena that participants often accept more options when they are asked to delete undesired options from a full model (subtractive framing) than they do when they are instructed to add desired options to a base model (additive framing). Whether the same effect exists in different age groups is less well known. To explore the roles of age and purchase motivations on the option framing effect for automobiles purchases, this study adopted a 3 (age group: younger, middle-aged, vs. older) × 2 (option framing: additive vs. subtractive) × 2 (focus condition: information vs. emotion) mixed design. To manipulate purchase motivations, participants in the three age groups were instructed to focus on the ratio of utility and price of options (information-focus) or the extent of pleasure induced by the options (emotion-focus) when they made purchase decisions in two framing conditions. The results revealed similar option framing effect across all age groups in the information-focus condition regarding the total price paid for accepted options. In contrast, the framing effect was not found in the emotion-focus condition. In addition, older adults accepted more options and an overall higher price than younger and middle-aged adults in both focus conditions. This difference was more obvious in the emotion-focus condition than in the information-focus condition. Moreover, both the number of accepted options and the total accepted price of the younger group in the information-focus condition were higher than those in the emotion-focus condition, whereas the older and middle-aged groups accepted same number of options and price between two focus conditions. These results imply that purchase motivation is a moderator of the option framing effect and age characteristics linked with motivations must be considered in sales.

Adult age differences in decision making across domains: Increased discounting of social and health-related rewards

Although research on aging and decision making continues to grow, the majority of studies examine decisions made to maximize monetary earnings or points. It is not clear whether these results generalize to other types of rewards. To investigate this, we examined adult age differences in 92 healthy participants aged 22 to 83. Participants completed 9 hypothetical discounting tasks, which included 3 types of discounting factors (time, probability, effort) across 3 reward domains (monetary, social, health). Participants made choices between a smaller magnitude reward with a shorter time delay/higher probability/lower level of physical effort required and a larger magnitude reward with a longer time delay/lower probability/higher level of physical effort required. Older compared with younger individuals were more likely to choose options that involved shorter time delays or higher probabilities of experiencing an interaction with a close social partner or receiving health benefits from a hypothetical drug. These findings suggest that older adults may be more motivated than young adults to obtain social and health rewards immediately and with certainty. (PsycINFO Database Record

Age Differences in Information Use While Making Decisions: Resource Limitations or Processing Differences?

Recent research on the decision-making abilities of older adults has shown that they use less information than young adults. One explanation ascribes this age difference to reductions in cognitive abilities with age. The article includes three experimental studies that focused on determining the conditions in which older and young adults would display dissimilar information processing characteristics. Findings from Studies 1 and 2 demonstrated that older adults are not necessarily at greater disadvantage than young adults in decision contexts that demand more information processing resources. Findings from Study 3 indicated that older adults when faced with decisions that require greater processing are likely to use a strategy that reduces the amount of information needed, whereas younger adults rely on strategies that utilize more resources. Combined the findings indicate that older adults change their decision-making strategies based on the context and information provided. Furthermore, support is provided for processing difference.

Emotional intelligence and depressive symptoms in Spanish institutionalized elders: does emotional self-efficacy act as a mediator?

Background. This work examines the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and depressive symptomatology in institutionalized older adults, delving into the mechanisms underlying this relationship. Considering that previous evidence of the variation of the EI-depression relationship depending on whether the emotional ability or the perception of that ability is evaluated, a model of multiple mediation was tested in which the dimensions of emotional self-efficacy (ESE) act as mediators in the relationship between ability EI and depressive symptomatology.

Methods. The sample consisted of 115 institutionalized older adults (47.82% women; 80.3 ± 7.9 years of age) from the province of Jaén (Spain) who completed a test of ESE, a measure of ability EI, and a self-administered questionnaire of depressive symptoms.

Results. The results showed a positive association between older adults’ emotional performance and depressive symptomatology, finding stronger associations with ESE than with EI abilities. In addition, multiple mediation analyses showed that two of the four dimensions of ESE fully mediated the relationship between ability EI and depressive symptoms.

Discussion. These findings suggest that older adults’ high levels of emotional competence generate a feeling of ESE which can protect them against depressive symptoms. This work supports the predictive validity of emotional abilities and ESE for the mental health of a group that is particularly vulnerable to depression, institutionalized older adults. The limitations of the work are discussed, and future lines of research were considered.

An exploration of decision aid effectiveness: the impact of promoting affective vs. deliberative processing on a health-related decision

BACKGROUND

Decision aids (DAs) are non-directive communication tools that help patients make value-consistent health-care decisions. However, most DAs have been developed without an explicit theoretical framework, resulting in a lack of understanding of how DAs achieve outcomes.

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the effect of promoting affective vs. deliberative processing on DA effectiveness based on dual-process theory.

DESIGN, SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS

One hundred and forty-eight female university students participated in a randomized controlled experiment with three conditions: emotion-focused, information-focused and control. Preference-value consistency, knowledge, decisional conflict and satisfaction were compared across the conditions using planned contrast analyses.

INTERVENTION

The intervention comprised two different DAs and instructional manipulations. The emotion-focused condition received a modified DA with affective content and instructions to induce an affective reaction. The information-focused and control conditions received the same DA without the affective content. The information-focused condition received additional instructions to induce deliberative processing.

RESULTS

Controlling for the experiment-wise error rate at P < 0.017, the emotion-focused and information-focused conditions had significantly higher decisional satisfaction than the control condition (P < 0.001). The emotion-focused condition did not demonstrate preference-value consistency. There were no significant differences for decisional conflict and knowledge.

DISCUSSION

Results suggest that the promotion of affective processing may hinder value-consistent decision making, while deliberative processing may enhance decisional satisfaction.

CONCLUSIONS

This investigation of the effect of affective and deliberative processes in DA-supported decision making has implications for the design and use of DAs. DA effectiveness may be enhanced by incorporating a simple instruction to focus on the details of the information.

New perspectives for motivating better decisions in older adults

Decision-making competence in later adulthood is affected by declines in cognitive skills, and age-related changes in affect and experience can sometimes compensate. However, recent findings suggest that age-related changes in motivation also affect the extent to which adults draw from experience, affect, and deliberative skills when making decisions. To date, relatively little attention has been given to strategies for addressing age-related changes in motivation to promote better decisions in older adults. To address this limitation, we draw from diverse literatures to suggest promising intervention strategies for motivating older recipients’ motivation to make better decisions. We start by reviewing the life-span developmental literature, which suggests that older adults’ motivation to put effort into decisions depends on the perceived personal relevance of decisions as well as their self-efficacy (i.e., confidence in applying their ability and knowledge). Next, we discuss two approaches from the health intervention design literature, the mental models approach and the patient activation approach, which aim to improve motivation for decision making by improving personal relevance or by building self-efficacy or confidence to use new information and skills. Using examples from these literatures, we discuss how to construct interventions to motivate good decisions in later adulthood.

Does positivity operate when the stakes are high? Health status and decision making among older adults

Research and theory suggest that emotional goals are increasingly prioritized with age. Related empirical work has shown that, compared with younger adults, older adults attend to and remember positive information more than negative information. This age-related positivity effect has been eliminated in experiments that have explicitly demanded processing of both positive and negative information. In the present study, we explored whether a reduction of the preference for positive information over negative information appears when the material being reviewed holds personal relevance for the individual. Older participants whose health varied from poor to very good reviewed written material prior to making decisions about health related and non-health-related issues. As predicted, older adults in relatively poor health (compared with those in relatively good health) showed less positivity in review of information while making health-related decisions. In contrast, positivity emerged regardless of health status for decisions that were unrelated to health. Across decision contexts, those individuals who focused more on positive information than negative information reported better postdecisional mood and greater decision satisfaction. Results are consistent with the theoretical argument that the age-related positivity effect reflects goal-directed cognitive processing and, furthermore, suggests that personal relevance and contextual factors determine whether positivity emerges.

Distinct effects of positive and negative music on older adults’ auditory target identification performances

Older adults, compared to younger adults, are more likely to attend to pleasant situations and avoid unpleasant ones. Yet, it is unclear whether such a phenomenon may be generalized to musical emotions. In this study, we investigated whether there is an age-related difference in how musical emotions are experienced and how positive and negative music influences attention performances in a target identification task. Thirty-one young and twenty-eight older adults were presented with 40 musical excerpts conveying happiness, peacefulness, sadness, and threat. While listening to music, participants were asked to rate their feelings and monitor each excerpt for the occurrence of an auditory target. Compared to younger adults, older adults reported experiencing weaker emotional activation when listening to threatening music and showed higher level of liking for happy music. Correct reaction times (RTs) for target identification were longer for threatening than for happy music in older adults but not in younger adults. This suggests that older adults benefit from a positive musical context and can regulate emotion elicited by negative music by decreasing attention towards it (and therefore towards the auditory target).

Middle-aged adults facing skin cancer information: fixation, mood, and behavior

Older adults fixate less on negative parts of skin cancer videos than younger adults, leading them to feel better (Isaacowitz & Choi, 2012). We extended this paradigm to middle-aged adults (ages 35-59, n = 63), whose fixation patterns were measured as they viewed skin cancer videos; mood and behavior were also assessed. Middle-aged adults looked even less at the videos than the other age groups, especially at the negative clips. They also reported the best moods but relatively low levels of learning and positive skin cancer behavior. In some cases, middle-aged adults may show larger "age-related positivity effects" than older adults.

Choosing a physician depends on how you want to feel: the role of ideal affect in health-related decision making

When given a choice, how do people decide which physician to select? Although significant research has demonstrated that how people actually feel (their "actual affect") influences their health care preferences, how people ideally want to feel (their "ideal affect") may play an even greater role. Specifically, we predicted that people trust physicians whose affective characteristics match their ideal affect, which leads people to prefer those physicians more. Consistent with this prediction, the more participants wanted to feel high arousal positive states on average (ideal HAP; e.g., excited), the more likely they were to select a HAP-focused physician. Similarly, the more people wanted to feel low arousal positive states on average (ideal LAP; e.g., calm), the more likely they were to select a LAP-focused physician. Also as predicted, these links were mediated by perceived physician trustworthiness. Notably, while participants' ideal affect predicted physician preference, actual affect (how much people actually felt HAP and LAP on average) did not. These findings suggest that people base serious decisions on how they want to feel, and highlight the importance of considering ideal affect in models of decision making preferences.

Age-related differences in affective responses to and memory for emotions conveyed by music: a cross-sectional study

There is mounting evidence that aging is associated with the maintenance of positive affect and the decrease of negative affect to ensure emotion regulation goals. Previous empirical studies have primarily focused on a visual or autobiographical form of emotion communication. To date, little investigation has been done on musical emotions. The few studies that have addressed aging and emotions in music were mainly interested in emotion recognition, thus leaving unexplored the question of how aging may influence emotional responses to and memory for emotions conveyed by music. In the present study, eighteen older (60–84 years) and eighteen younger (19–24 years) listeners were asked to evaluate the strength of their experienced emotion on happy, peaceful, sad, and scary musical excerpts (Vieillard et al., 2008) while facial muscle activity was recorded. Participants then performed an incidental recognition task followed by a task in which they judged to what extent they experienced happiness, peacefulness, sadness, and fear when listening to music. Compared to younger adults, older adults (a) reported a stronger emotional reactivity for happiness than other emotion categories, (b) showed an increased zygomatic activity for scary stimuli, (c) were more likely to falsely recognize happy music, and (d) showed a decrease in their responsiveness to sad and scary music. These results are in line with previous findings and extend them to emotion experience and memory recognition, corroborating the view of age-related changes in emotional responses to music in a positive direction away from negativity.

Age and self-relevance effects on information search during decision making

OBJECTIVES

We investigated how information search strategies used to support decision making were influenced by self-related implications of the task to the individual. Consistent with the notion of selective engagement, we hypothesized that increased self-relevance would result in more adaptive search behaviors and that this effect would be stronger in older adults than in younger adults.

METHOD

We examined search behaviors in 79 younger and 81 older adults using a process-tracing procedure with 2 different decision tasks. The impact of motivation (i.e., self-related task implications) was examined by manipulating social accountability and the age-related relevance of the task.

RESULTS

Although age differences in search strategies were not great, older adults were more likely than younger adults to use simpler strategies in contexts with minimal self-implications. Contrary to expectations, young and old alike were more likely to use noncompensatory than compensatory strategies, even when engaged in systematic search, with education being the most important determinant of search behavior.

DISCUSSION

The results support the notion that older adults are adaptive decision makers and that factors other than age may be more important determinants of performance in situations where knowledge can be used to support performance.

Women's sun protection cognitions in response to UV photography: the role of age, cognition, and affect

This study examined the impact of ultraviolet (UV) photography, cognition versus affect, and age on women's sun-related cognitions and a proxy measure of sun protection behavior. Participants (N = 114) were recruited via public advertisements and came to the lab to view a photo showing their UV damage. In addition, some participants received instructions to focus on either their thoughts (cognition) or feelings (affect) about their photograph before completing the survey. Women in the affect condition reported the lowest perceived vulnerability to skin cancer and highest absent/exempt beliefs (beliefs that one is unlikely to develop skin cancer if she hasn't already). Condition by age interactions showed that, among those in the cognition and control (no instructions) conditions, older women reported higher perceived vulnerability and lower absent/exempt beliefs, and took more sunscreen than younger women. However, older women reported higher absent/exempt beliefs and higher sun-risk willingness than younger women in the affect condition.

Administration of dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) increases serum levels of androgens and estrogens but does not enhance short-term memory in post-menopausal women

The current study examines the effect of administering dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) on short-term memory. This experiment used a double-blind placebo-controlled cross-over design to explore the effects of a four week regimen of 50 mg oral DHEA on performance on the digit span, verbal span, and modified Sternberg (Oberauer) tasks. The results demonstrate that the current regimen of drug administration significantly increases serum levels of DHEA, DHEAS, testosterone and estrone and substantially alters the patterns of correlations among the serum levels of these hormones. Despite this substantial change in the hormonal milieu, DHEA administration produced no beneficial effects on cognitive performance in the digit span, verbal span, or modified Sternberg paradigm tasks. Ancillary analyses of the relation between hormone levels and cognitive performance demonstrated a strong positive correlation between DHEA levels and performance on digit span forward/backward and verbal span forward in the placebo drug condition, but not in the DHEA condition. We interpret the juxtaposition of the null results of DHEA administration and the correlation of DHEA levels and performance in the placebo condition to indicate that the referenced correlations arise because a third variable (i.e., age) is associated with both performance and DHEA levels. Additional analyses supported this hypothesis.

Age, time, and decision making: from processing speed to global time horizons

Time and time perceptions are integral to decision making because any meaningful choice is embedded in a temporal context and requires the evaluation of future preferences and outcomes. The present review examines the influence of chronological age on time perceptions and horizons and discusses implications for decision making across the life span. Time influences and interacts with decision making in multiple ways. Specifically, this review examines the following topic areas: (1) processing speed and decision time, (2) internal clocks and time estimation, (3) mental representations of future time and intertemporal choice, and (4) global time horizons. For each aspect, patterns of age differences and implications for decision strategies and quality are discussed. The conclusion proposes frameworks to integrate different lines of research and identifies promising avenues for future inquiry.

Looking, feeling, and doing: are there age differences in attention, mood, and behavioral responses to skin cancer information?

OVERVIEW

Previous studies on aging and attention to emotional information found that older adults may look away from negative stimuli to regulate their moods. However, it is an open question whether older adults' tendency to look less at negative material comes at the expense of learning when negative information is also health-relevant. This study investigated how age-related changes in attention to negative but relevant information about skin cancer risk reduction influenced both subsequent health behavior and mood regulation.

METHODS

Younger (18-25 years of age, n = 78) and older (60-92 years of age, n = 77) adults' fixations toward videos containing negatively valenced content and risk-reduction information about skin cancer were recorded with eye-tracking. Self-reported mood ratings were measured throughout. Behavioral outcome measures (e.g., answering knowledge questions about skin cancer, choosing a sunscreen, completing a skin self-exam) assessed participants' learning of key health-relevant information, their interest in seeking additional information, and their engagement in protective behaviors.

RESULTS

Older adults generally looked less at the negative video content, more rapidly regulated their moods, and learned fewer facts about skin cancer; yet, they engaged in a greater number of protective behaviors than did younger adults.

CONCLUSIONS

Older adults may demonstrate an efficient looking strategy that extracts important information without disrupting their moods, and they may compensate for less learning by engaging in a greater number of protective behaviors. Younger adults may be distracted by disruptions to their mood, constraining their engagement in protective behaviors.

Age Differences in Striatal Delay Sensitivity during Intertemporal Choice in Healthy Adults

Intertemporal choices are a ubiquitous class of decisions that involve selecting between outcomes available at different times in the future. We investigated the neural systems supporting intertemporal decisions in healthy younger and older adults. Using functional neuroimaging, we find that aging is associated with a shift in the brain areas that respond to delayed rewards. Although we replicate findings that brain regions associated with the mesolimbic dopamine system respond preferentially to immediate rewards, we find a separate region in the ventral striatum with very modest time dependence in older adults. Activation in this striatal region was relatively insensitive to delay in older but not younger adults. Since the dopamine system is believed to support associative learning about future rewards over time, our observed transfer of function may be due to greater experience with delayed rewards as people age. Identifying differences in the neural systems underlying these decisions may contribute to a more comprehensive model of age-related change in intertemporal choice.

If only I had taken my usual route…: age-related differences in counter-factual thinking

Previous research suggests that young adults can shift between rational and experiential modes of thinking when forming social judgments. The present study examines whether older adults demonstrate this flexibility in thinking. Young and older adults completed an If-only task adapted from Epstein, Lipson, and Huh's (1992 , Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62, 328) examination of individuals' ability to adopt rational or experiential modes of thought while making a judgment about characters who experience a negative event that could have been avoided. Consistent with our expectations for their judgments of the characters, young adults shifted between experiential and rational modes of thought when instructed to do so. Conversely, regardless of the mode of thought being used or the order with which they adopted the different modes of thought (i.e., shifting from experiential to rational in Study 1 and from rational to experiential in Study 2), older adults consistently offered judgments and justifications that reflected a preference for experiential-based thought.

Age and the purchase of prescription drug insurance by older adults

The Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Program places an unprecedented degree of choice in the hands of older adults despite concerns over their ability to make effective decisions and desire to have extensive choice in this context. While previous research has compared older adults to younger adults along these dimensions, our study, in contrast, examines how likelihood to delay decision making and preferences for choice differ by age among older age cohorts. Our analysis is based on responses of older adults to a simulation of enrollment in Medicare Part D. We examine how age, numeracy, cognitive reflection, and the interaction between age and performance on these instruments are related to the decision to enroll in a Medicare prescription drug plan and preference for choice in this context. We find that numeracy and cognitive reflection are positively associated with enrollment likelihood and that they are more important determinants of enrollment than age. We also find that greater numeracy is associated with a lower willingness to pay for choice. Hence, our findings raise concern that older adults, and, in particular, those with poorer numerical processing skills, may need extra support in enrolling in the program: they are less likely to enroll than those with stronger numerical processing skills, even though they show greater willingness to pay for choice.

Aging and consumer decision making

Research on consumer decision making and aging is especially important for fostering a better understanding of ways to maintain consumer satisfaction and high decision quality across the life span. We provide a review of extant research on the effects of normal aging on cognition and decision processes and how these age-related processes are influenced by task environment, meaningfulness of the task, and consumer expertise. We consider how research centered on these topics generates insights about changes in consumption decisions that occur with aging and identify a number of gaps and directions for future research.

Dual Processes in Decision Making and Developmental Neuroscience: A Fuzzy-Trace Model

From Piaget to the present, traditional and dual-process theories have predicted improvement in reasoning from childhood to adulthood, and improvement has been observed. However, developmental reversals-that reasoning biases emerge with development -have also been observed in a growing list of paradigms. We explain how fuzzy-trace theory predicts both improvement and developmental reversals in reasoning and decision making. Drawing on research on logical and quantitative reasoning, as well as on risky decision making in the laboratory and in life, we illustrate how the same small set of theoretical principles apply to typical neurodevelopment, encompassing childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, and to neurological conditions such as autism and Alzheimer's disease. For example, framing effects-that risk preferences shift when the same decisions are phrases in terms of gains versus losses-emerge in early adolescence as gist-based intuition develops. In autistic individuals, who rely less on gist-based intuition and more on verbatim-based analysis, framing biases are attenuated (i.e., they outperform typically developing control subjects). In adults, simple manipulations based on fuzzy-trace theory can make framing effects appear and disappear depending on whether gist-based intuition or verbatim-based analysis is induced. These theoretical principles are summarized and integrated in a new mathematical model that specifies how dual modes of reasoning combine to produce predictable variability in performance. In particular, we show how the most popular and extensively studied model of decision making-prospect theory-can be derived from fuzzy-trace theory by combining analytical (verbatim-based) and intuitive (gist-based) processes.

The Expanding Spectrum of Health Risks: Public Health or Harm?

Drawing on hydration as an illustrative case in point, this review discusses evidence-based perspectives on the continually expanding spectrum of promulgated health risks, including potential benefits and harms to public health. Future directions for inquiry and practice also are addressed.

Optimizing Tailored Health Communications

This review discusses evidence-based perspectives on tailored health communications for lifestyle modification. Future directions for inquiry and practice also are addressed.