What is it about?
This research challenges common beliefs about how aging affects decision-making, especially in situations involving risk and uncertainty. Using a specially designed gambling task, we compared how younger and older adults make choices when faced with tricky decisions. Our findings were surprising: while older adults were actually more willing to take risks than younger people, both age groups were equally capable of resisting manipulation through decoy options (where an inferior choice is added to make another option look better). Importantly, although older adults made more mistakes at first, they showed excellent ability to learn and improve their decision-making with practice. By the end of the task, they performed just as well as younger adults. This suggests that while aging might affect how quickly people process new information, it doesn't reduce their ability to make good decisions or protect themselves from manipulation.
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Why is it important?
These findings are particularly relevant given our aging society, where older adults frequently need to make important financial and healthcare decisions. Our research shows that with some practice and familiarity with a task, older adults are just as capable as younger people at making complex decisions and shouldn't be underestimated or overprotected when it comes to important choices.
Perspectives
This research holds special significance for me because it challenges pervasive stereotypes about aging and decision-making. Too often, older adults are portrayed as vulnerable and less capable decision-makers, which can lead to their infantilization or exclusion from important choices. Our findings tell a different, more nuanced story. What I find particularly exciting about this work is how it reveals older adults' resilience and adaptability. While they might start more slowly with new tasks, their ability to learn and improve matches that of younger adults. This finding has deeply affected my view of cognitive aging - it's not simply a story of decline, but rather one of adaptation and preserved capabilities. The most rewarding aspect of this research was seeing how the results could help combat ageism in real-world settings. Whether it's financial advisors, healthcare providers, or family members helping older adults with decisions, our findings suggest that what older people often need isn't protection from choices, but rather time and opportunity to familiarize themselves with new situations. I hope this work contributes to a broader shift in how we think about aging and decision-making, moving away from stereotypes of vulnerability toward a more balanced understanding that recognizes both challenges and strengths in later life.
Maciej Koscielniak
SWPS University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Effect of age on susceptibility to the attraction effect in sequential risky decision-making, Ageing and Society, November 2024, Cambridge University Press,
DOI: 10.1017/s0144686x24000527.
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