Downloads & Free Reading Options - Results

Many of our decisions have consequences for those around us, yet psychological research on decision making has traditionally overlooked social dimensions of choice. In light of documented socio-motivational changes with age and considering the growing number of older adults in North American society, there is a need for research on social (vs. nonsocial) decision making across the adult lifespan. The proposed project investigates social decision-making processes in younger and older adults, with a particular focus on risky choice – decisions in which individuals are faced with uncertain outcomes. Participants will perform a modified “hot” version of the Columbia Card Task (Figner et al., 2009, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition), with two contexts: one in which risk taking is rewarded with gains for the self, at the threat of losses to a charity, and another in which risk taking is rewarded with gains for the charity, at the threat of losses to the self. The critical research question is how these self-other tradeoffs affect risk taking and risk adjustment in younger and older adults.

This study examines the effect of social vs. non-social decision contexts on risky decisions from description in younger and older adults. Research on social decision making suggests that decisions for others tend to be riskier than decisions for self (Polman & Wu, 2020). However, the age of the decision maker has received little attention. Evidence of increased prosocial valuation in aging (Mayr & Freund, 2020; Sparrow, Swirsky, Kudus, & Spaniol, 2021) leads us to predict a more pronounced increase in risk taking for others vs. self, in older adults compared to younger adults, even when others’ gains are costly to the decision maker, as is the case for charitable donations. Younger and older participants will make a series of hypothetical choices between smaller-safer and larger-riskier financial prospects. Decision context will be manipulated within-subjects: 1) self-gain, 2) self-loss, 3) charity-gain, 4) charity-gain at personal cost (i.e., donation).

This study examines the effect of social vs. non-social decision contexts on risky decisions from description in younger and older adults. Research on social decision making suggests that decisions for others tend to be riskier than decisions for self (Polman & Wu, 2020). However, the age of the decision maker has received little attention. Evidence of increased prosocial valuation in aging (Mayr & Freund, 2020; Sparrow, Swirsky, Kudus, & Spaniol, 2021) leads us to predict a more pronounced increase in risk taking for others vs. self, in older adults compared to younger adults, even when others’ gains are costly to the decision maker, as is the case for charitable donations. Younger and older participants will make a series of hypothetical choices between smaller-safer and larger-riskier financial prospects. Decision context will be manipulated within-subjects: 1) self-gain, 2) self-loss, 3) charity-gain, 4) charity-gain at personal cost (i.e., donation).

Recent work demonstrates that older adults make fewer utilitarian decisions during moral dilemmas than younger adults, and that this behavior is partially accounted for by older adults’ experience of increased negative emotion during the dilemmas, as well as, higher report of moral idealism (McNair et al., 2019). According to the dual process theory of moral decision-making, endorsing the utilitarian option during moral dilemmas involves cognitive control processes associated with the lateral prefrontal cortices that allow the individual to override their initial emotional response elicited by the dilemmas (Greene, 2007; Greene et al., 2008). As advancing age is associated with increased atrophy of lateral prefrontal cortices (Raz, 1997) and decreases in cognitive control (Hartshorne & Germine, 2015; Park, 2000), it is possible that the observed age differences in moral decision-making may reflect older adult inability to override their initial emotional response due to declines in cognitive control ability. However, it is also possible that motivation and associated emotion regulation also play a part in older adult moral decision-making. By recognizing their time to live as more limited than younger adults, older adults experience a motivational shift to focus on emotional goals, and specifically maximize positive experiences (Lang & Carstensen, 2002). This can lead to attempts to maximize social cohesion during conflict (Luong et al., 2011), and consistently engaged emotion regulation strategies are thought to account for positivity biases in attention and memory in older adults (Lang & Carstensen). In parallel to these age-related shifts in motivation, mortality salience (Tremoliere et al., 2012) and positive mood inductions (Strohminger et al., 2011; but see: Valdesolo & DeSteno, 2006) are both demonstrated as shifting younger adult responses away from the utilitarian option. In this case, it is possible that motivational shifts as demarcated by a limited temporal horizon and emotion regulation strategy use, may account for age differences in moral decision-making rather than older adult declines in cognitive control. It is also possible that either age-related changes in cognitive control and/or motivation could shift moral acceptability ratings of proposed interventions during moral dilemmas. Also, to our knowledge no study has examined subjective effort when making decisions on these types of dilemmas in older and younger adults. Similar to decisions, as well as, moral acceptability ratings, age-related declines in cognitive control or motivational changes could make responses to these dilemmas more effortful for older adults compared to younger adults. Here we sought to first replicate previous work (McNair et al., 2019) demonstrating that compared to younger adults, older adults endorse fewer utilitarian decisions and generally rate the utilitarian option as less morally acceptable. We also sought to examine the relationship between advancing age and responses to moral dilemmas, moral acceptability of proposed interventions, and subjective effort during dilemmas. Next we sought to determine whether age-related declines in working memory performance or age-related shifts in motivation mediate the relationship between age on moral decision-making, moral acceptability ratings of proposed interventions, and subjective effort during the task.

Previous research has shown the importance of episodic memory in guiding value-based decision-making (Wimmer & Shohamy, 2012; Wang et al.,2021, 2024a). Meanwhile, recent research found that older adults made more maladaptive decisions even though they perserved episodic memories of past experiences (Lempert et al., 2022; Wang & Gutchess, 2024b). However, it is unknown whether the effect of memory on decision-making differs in gain and loss contexts for older adults, as older adults usually suffer economic losses in financial frauds in real life. Furthermore, previous studies have not explored how the specificity level of episodic memory impacts decision-making in older adults. The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of episodic memory in guiding older adults' decision-making in gain and loss contexts, and how memory specificity may play a role in the interaction between memory and decision-making. In the current study, younger and older participants will first learn that some faces from an investment institution can help them gain money while some will make them lose money. Then, participants undergo a decision-making phase where they need to choose between two faces to gain as much money as possible. Finally, a memory test will be conducted to measure participants' memory for the faces, for the face-value and face-context associations.

Many of our decisions have consequences for those around us, yet psychological research on decision making has traditionally overlooked social dimensions of choice. In light of documented socio-motivational changes with age and considering the growing number of older adults in North American society, there is a need for research on social (vs. nonsocial) decision making across the adult lifespan. The proposed project investigates social decision-making processes in younger and older adults, with a particular focus on risky choice – decisions in which individuals are faced with uncertain outcomes. Participants will perform a modified “hot” version of the Columbia Card Task (Figner et al., 2009, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition), with two contexts: one in which risk taking is rewarded with gains for the self, at the threat of losses to a charity, and another in which risk taking is rewarded with gains for the charity, at the threat of losses to the self. The critical research question is how these self-other tradeoffs affect risk taking and risk adjustment in younger and older adults.

Many of our decisions have consequences for those around us, yet psychological research on decision making has traditionally overlooked social dimensions of choice. In light of documented socio-motivational changes with age and considering the growing number of older adults in North American society, there is a need for research on social (vs. nonsocial) decision making across the adult lifespan. The proposed project investigates social decision-making processes in younger and older adults, with a particular focus on risky choice – decisions in which individuals are faced with uncertain outcomes. Participants will perform a modified “hot” version of the Columbia Card Task (Figner et al., 2009, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition), with two contexts: one in which risk taking is rewarded with gains for the self, at the threat of losses to a charity, and another in which risk taking is rewarded with gains for the charity, at the threat of losses to the self. The critical research question is how these self-other tradeoffs affect risk taking and risk adjustment in younger and older adults.