Department of Psychology, University of Basel, Basel. Switzerland.
Psychol Aging. 2012 Dec;27(4):825-39. doi: 10.1037/a0027845. Epub 2012 Mar 26.
We investigated the contribution of cognitive ability and affect to age differences in sequential decision making by asking younger and older adults to shop for items in a computerized sequential decision-making task. Older adults performed poorly compared to younger adults partly due to searching too few options. An analysis of the decision process with a formal model suggested that older adults set lower thresholds for accepting an option than younger participants. Further analyses suggested that positive affect, but not fluid abilities, was related to search in the sequential decision task. A second study that manipulated affect in younger adults supported the causal role of affect: Increased positive affect lowered the initial threshold for accepting an attractive option. In sum, our results suggest that positive affect is a key factor determining search in sequential decision making. Consequently, increased positive affect in older age may contribute to poorer sequential decisions by leading to insufficient search.
我们通过让年轻和年长的成年人在计算机化的顺序决策任务中购买物品，调查认知能力和情感对顺序决策中年龄差异的贡献。老年人的表现不如年轻人，部分原因是他们搜索的选项太少。对决策过程的正式模型分析表明，老年人接受选择的门槛低于年轻参与者。进一步的分析表明，积极的情绪，而不是流体能力，与顺序决策任务中的搜索有关。第二项在年轻成年人中操纵情绪的研究支持了情绪的因果作用：积极情绪的增加降低了接受有吸引力选项的初始门槛。总之，我们的结果表明，积极的情绪是决定顺序决策中搜索的关键因素。因此，老年时期积极情绪的增加可能会导致搜索不足，从而导致顺序决策能力下降。
