scholarly journals Aging and Decision Making: Socio-Emotional and Contextual Factors

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 557-557
Author(s):  
JoNell Strough ◽  
Corinna Loeckenhoff ◽  
Susan Charles
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Contextual Factors ◽  
Emotional Responses ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Behavioral Risk ◽  
Younger Adults

Abstract Maintaining sound decision-making skills in later life is a key concern in the face of population aging. The four presentations in this symposium highlight the importance of considering socio-emotional and contextual factors when investigating adult age differences in decision making. Together, they show that features of decision contexts such as the way information is presented, along with social relationships and emotional responses, have distinct implications for understanding age effects in decision-related processing and outcomes. Drawing from fuzzy trace theory, Nolte, Löckenhoff and Reyna showed that gist-based (“good,” “extremely poor”) versus verbatim information (exact numbers) was differentially appealing to younger and older adults, with older adults seeking more gist information than verbatim information. Young and Mikels investigated older and younger adults’ integral emotional responses to a behavioral risk-taking task. Younger adults experienced more anger and less contentment than older adults. These emotions differentially predicted risk taking in the two groups. Seaman, Christensen, Senn, Cooper, and Cassidy found age differences in learning about the trustworthiness of social partners. Older adults showed less learning relative to younger adults and invested less with trustworthy partners and more with untrustworthy partners. Smith, Strough, Parker and Bruine de Bruin found that older age, perceiving better decision-making ability than age peers, and perceiving declines in ability over time, were associated with lesser preferences for making decisions with others. In her discussion, Charles will integrate these findings with existing research on aging and decision making and offers directions for future research.

scholarly journals Age Differences in Discrete Emotional States During Risk Taking

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 557-557
Author(s):  
Nathaniel Young ◽  
Joseph Mikels
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Positive Emotions ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Emotional Responses ◽  
Emotional States ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Balloon Analogue Risk Task ◽  
Increased Risk

Abstract Emotions often guide risk-taking. For example, anger tends to lead to increased risk-taking. However, older and younger adults differ in their emotional experiences: older adults tend to report more positive emotions, fewer experiences of anger, and relatively similar or increased experiences of sadness relative to younger adults. As such, differences in emotional experience may manifest in the integral emotional responses of older and younger adults as they take risks. The current work examined the discrete integral emotional responses of older and younger adults as they completed the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART). For the BART, participants completed 40 trials. Prior to each trial, participants reported how much anger, sadness, contentment, and excitement they felt. The results indicate that younger adults experienced more anger and less contentment than older adults in response to the BART. Importantly though, age differences also emerged in how discrete emotions predicted subsequent risk-taking.

scholarly journals Age Differences in Executive Control Assessed with a Robotic Object Hit and Avoid Test of Rapid Motor Decision Making

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 881-882
Author(s):  
Alexandra Watral ◽  
Kevin Trewartha
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Executive Functioning ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Test Performance ◽  
Cognitive Status ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Neuropsychological Tasks ◽  
Measures Of Performance

Abstract Motor decision-making processes are required for many standard neuropsychological tasks, including the Trail Making Test (TMT), that aim to assess cognitive functioning in older adults. However, in their standard formats, it is difficult to isolate the relative contributions of sensorimotor and cognitive processes to performance on these neuropsychological tasks. Recently developed clinical tasks use a robotic manipulandum to assess both motor and cognitive aspects of rapid motor decision making in an object hit (OH) and object hit and avoid (OHA) task. We administered the OH and OHA tasks to 77 healthy younger adults and 59 healthy older adults to assess age differences in the motor and cognitive measures of performance. We administered the TMT parts A and B to assess the extent to which OHA performance is associated with executive functioning in particular. The results indicate that after controlling for hand speed, older adults performed worse on the OH and OHA tasks than younger adults, performance declines were far greater in the OHA task, and the global performance measures, which have been associated with cognitive status, were more sensitive to age differences than motor measures of performance. Those global measures of performance were also associated with measures of executive functioning on the TMT task. These findings provide evidence that rapid motor decision making tasks are sensitive to declines in executive control in aging. They also provide a way to isolate cognitive declines from declines in sensorimotor processes that are likely a contributing factor to age differences in neuropsychological test performance.

scholarly journals EXPLORING AGE, GENDER, AND RELATIONSHIP CLOSENESS DIFFERENCES IN RESPONSES TO IGNORED DISRESPECT

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S305-S305
Author(s):  
Jenessa C Steele ◽  
Amanda Chappell ◽  
Rachel Scott
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Emotional Responses ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Relationship Closeness ◽  
Close Condition

Abstract Emotional responses to disrespect tend to be negative (Hawkins, 2015). Little is known about how responses to disrespect vary across age groups and relationship closeness. It is unknown whether older adults have more emotional protection against disrespectful experiences, or are more deeply affected due to relationship closeness. Overall, we might expect that older adults react less negatively to disrespect compared to young adults, as they are more-skilled emotion regulators (Carstensen, 1991; English & Carstensen, 2014). We aimed to explore if, and under which circumstances, older adults are more or less sensitive to disrespect compared to younger adults. Three hundred participants responded to six scenarios illustrating ignored disrespect. Participants were randomly assigned to close or distant relationship disrespect scenarios. Relationship closeness was first determined by requesting participants identify a person in each layer of Kahn and Antonucci’s (1980) Social Convoy Model. Identified names were then automatically inserted into the six scenarios. Emotional responses and sensitivity to each scenario were recorded. Participants in the close condition reported more sensitivity to disrespect and negative emotions than participants in the distant condition. Females reported more sensitivity to disrespect and negative emotions than males. We did not find overwhelming support for age differences in responses to disrespect. A single scenario indicated younger participants more sensitive to disrespect than older participants. Findings suggest it is more hurtful to be disrespected by someone close to you and females may be more sensitive to disrespect than males. More research investigating the role of age in disrespect is needed.

scholarly journals When the “Golden Years” turn blue

2016 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 295-307 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer S. Green ◽  
Joshua C. Magee ◽  
Amanda R.W. Steiner ◽  
Bethany A. Teachman
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Clinical Practice ◽  
Healthy Aging ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Anxiety And Depression ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Pathological Anxiety ◽  
Age Related Changes

Current treatments for disorders of emotion, such as pathological anxiety, are often less effective in older adults than in younger adults and have poorly understood mechanisms, pointing to the need for psychopathology models that better account for age-related changes in normative emotional functioning and the expression of disordered emotion. This article describes ways in which the healthy aging and emotion literature can enhance understanding and treatment of symptoms of anxiety and depression in later life. We offer recommendations on how to integrate the theories and findings of healthy aging literature with psychopathology research and clinical practice and highlight opportunities for future research.

scholarly journals Information Avoidance in Decision Making: Do the Reasons Vary by Age?

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 364-364
Author(s):  
Stephanie Deng ◽  
Julia Nolte ◽  
Corinna Loeckenhoff
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Medical Decision ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Adult Lifespan ◽  
Information Avoidance ◽  
Highly Correlated

Abstract Older adults make up the majority of the U.S. patient population and age differences in information avoidance have potential implications for their ability to participate in informed medical decision making. Meta-analytic evidence suggests that older adults seek less information before making a decision than younger adults do (Mata & Nunes, 2010). However, age differences in explicit information avoidance have yet to be quantified. We hypothesized that older adults would avoid decision-relevant information more strongly than younger adults do. We also examined the self-reported reasons for information avoidance and hypothesized that older adults would express more concern about unwanted information influencing their affect (Reed & Carstensen, 2012) and decision preferences (Mather, 2006), both of which are known predictors of information avoidance (Woolley & Risen, 2018). To test these assumptions, we conducted a pre-registered online study involving three different health-related decision scenarios. For each scenario, an adult lifespan sample (N=195, Mage=52.95, 50% female, 71% non-Hispanic White) chose to either receive or avoid information. Responses were highly correlated across scenarios and results were pooled into a single avoidance measure. Analyses indicated that concerns about consequences for decision preferences positively predicted decision avoidance (p<.001), whereas concerns about consequences for affect did not (p=.079). Contrary to predictions, older age was not significantly associated with information avoidance (p=.827). Further, self-reported concerns about the influence of unwanted information on affect and decision preferences were negatively associated with age (ps<.001). This suggests that interventions to foster pre-decisional information seeking should be tailored to the target age group.

Age Differences in Attachment Orientations among Younger and Older Adults: Evidence from Two Self-Report Measures of Attachment

2009 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel L. Segal ◽  
Tracy N. Needham ◽  
Frederick L. Coolidge
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Convergent Validity ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Community Dwelling ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Preoccupied Attachment

The attachment patterns of younger and older adults were studied using two-dimensional self-report measures of adult attachment. Community-dwelling younger ( n = 144, M = 22.5 years, SD = 3.6) and older ( n = 106, M = 68.6 years, SD = 8.3) adults completed the Measure of Attachment Qualities (MAQ; Carver, 1997) and the Relationship Style Questionnaire (RSQ; Griffin & Bartholomew, 1994). Although the MAQ and RSQ are believed to be measuring similar constructs, they are derived from different theoretical perspectives. Correlations between the two measures were in the expected directions proving modest evidence for their convergent validity. Regarding cross-sectional results, as was expected, older adults scored lower than younger adults on the ambivalent-worry attachment scale of the MAQ and the preoccupied attachment scale of the RSQ. There were no age differences regarding secure, avoidant, and dismissing attachment. It appears that older adults experience anxious types of attachment less frequently than younger adults. Although these results primarily speak to age differences and possible cohort effects, they also provide some support for socioemotional selectivity theory and its hypothesized improved relationships in later life.

Measuring the subjective cost of listening effort using a discounting task

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Drew Jordan McLaughlin ◽  
Todd Samuel Braver ◽  
Jonathan E. Peelle
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Monetary Reward ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Listening Effort ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Economic Decision Making

Purpose: Objective measures of listening effort have been gaining prominence, as they provide metrics to quantify the difficulty of understanding speech under a variety of circumstances. A key challenge has been to develop paradigms that enable the complementary measurement of subjective listening effort in a quantitatively precise manner. In the present study, we introduce a novel decision-making paradigm to examine age-related and individual differences in subjective effort during listening.Method: Older and younger adults were presented with spoken sentences mixed with speech-shaped noise at multiple signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs). On each trial subjects were offered the choice between completing an easier listening trial (presented at +20 dB SNR) for a smaller monetary reward, or a harder listening trial (presented at either +4, 0, -4, -8, or -12 dB SNR) for a greater monetary reward. By varying the amount of the reward offered for the easier option, the subjective value of performing effortful listening trials at each SNR could be assessed. Results: Older adults discounted the value of effortful listening to a greater degree than young adults, opting to accept less money in order to avoid more difficult SNRs. Additionally, older adults with poorer hearing and smaller working memory capacities were more likely to choose easier trials; however, in younger adults, no relationship with hearing or working memory was found. Self-reported measures of economic status did not affect these relationships. Conclusion: These findings suggest that subjective listening effort depends on factors including, but not necessarily limited to, hearing and working memory. Additionally, this study demonstrates that economic decision-making paradigms can be a useful approach for assessing subjective listening effort, and may prove beneficial in future research.

scholarly journals EFFECTS OF AGE ON CONNECTION TO NATURE AND POSITIVE AFFECT

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S278-S278
Author(s):  
Amy Knepple Carney ◽  
Julie Patrick
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Positive Affect ◽  
Sample Size ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Socioemotional Selectivity Theory ◽  
Connection To Nature ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Socioemotional Selectivity

Abstract Socioemotional selectivity theory positis that when we feel our time as limited, when a person ages, emotion based goals become a priority (Carstensen, Isaacowitz, & Charles, 1999). Although previous studies have shown that all age groups benefit from a connection to nature (CN; Bisceglia, Perlman, Schaack, & Jenkins, 2009; Han, 2008; Mayer et al., 2009), there have been no studies conducted to determine if there are age differences in CN and how that relation contributes to positive affect. Analyses were conducted with a sample size of 152 participants with an average age of 37.55 years (SD = 15.64; Range 18 -89). Age was significantly positively associated with CN, r(151)=.16, p<.05. Additionally, an ANOVA showed that middle-aged to older adults reporting significantly higher CN than younger adults. The relation of positive affect to age and CN was then examined. In the analysis examining the effects of age and CN on positive affect, the model was significant, F(3, 146)=8.48, p<.05, R2 = .15. Both, CN, and age, uniquely contributed to the variance accounted for on positive affect, although, the interaction of CN and age did not uniquely contribute to the variance. These results may be indicative of socioemotional selectively theory, in that older adults were choosing connection to nature because it fulfilled more emotional activities/goals than the younger adults in the study. Because previous research has all but ignored the association of CN and age and their relation to positive affect, it should be considered in future research.

Benefits of Experience and Knowledge for Older Adults’ Monetary Sequence Preferences

2021 ◽  
pp. 009141502110094
Author(s):  
Jenna M. Wilson ◽  
JoNell Strough ◽  
Natalie J. Shook
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Financial Literacy ◽  
Older Age ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Financial Decision Making ◽  
Significant Contributor ◽  
Financial Decision

Financial literacy and financial experience may be important for understanding age differences in financial decisionmaking. Older adults generally have more financial experience than younger adults do, and some studies suggest they also have better financial literacy. We investigated associations among age ( N = 594, aged 20–88, M age = 46.48), financial experience, financial literacy, and preferences for receiving larger (versus smaller) amounts of money sooner (versus later). Older age was correlated with preferences for receiving larger amounts of money sooner and smaller amounts later, but this association was no longer significant after accounting for financial experience and financial literacy. Financial experience was the only significant contributor. We discuss implications for improving financial decision-making across adulthood.

Age Differences in Search Time for Two Over-Thecounter (OTC) Drug Label Formats

2005 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 200-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina C. Mendat ◽  
Aaron M. Watson ◽  
Christopher B. Mayhorn ◽  
Michael S. Wogalter
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Knowledge Acquisition ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Search Time ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Drug Label ◽  
Over The Counter ◽  
Younger Adults

This study compared older and younger adults' knowledge acquisition and search times for information on older and newer over-the-counter (OTC) drug label formats. The results showed that younger adults were faster than older adults. The younger group performed significantly faster with the newer formatted labels than the older formatted labels, whereas the older adults yielded no difference between the two formats. Potential directions for future research are discussed.

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