Koscielniak Maciej, Rydzewska Klara, Sedek Grzegorz
Interdisciplinary Center for Applied Cognitive Studies, Department of Psychology, SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities Warsaw, Poland.
Front Psychol. 2016 May 6;7:659. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00659. eCollection 2016.
According to the dual-process theoretical perspective adopted in the presented research, the efficiency of deliberative processes in decision making declines with age, but experiential processes are relatively well-preserved. The age-related differences in deliberative and experiential processes in risky decision-making were examined in this research by applying the Balloon Analog Risk Task (BART). We analyzed the influence of age on risk acceptance and decision-making performance in two age groups of female participants (younger adults, n = 81; older adults, n = 76), with additional experimental manipulation of initial risk perception. We predicted and confirmed that aging significantly worsens performance on the behavioral BART measures due to age-related decline in deliberative processes. Older participants were found to exhibit significantly higher risk aversion and lower BART performance, and the effect of age was mediated by cognitive (processing speed) and motivational (need for cognitive closure) mechanisms. Moreover, older adults adapt to the initial failure (vs. success) similarly, as younger adults due to preserved efficiency of experiential processes. These results suggest future directions for minimizing negative effects of aging in risky decision-making and indicate compensatory processes, which are preserved during aging.
根据本研究所采用的双过程理论观点，决策中审慎过程的效率会随着年龄增长而下降，但经验过程相对保持良好。本研究通过应用气球模拟风险任务（BART），考察了风险决策中审慎过程和经验过程与年龄相关的差异。我们分析了年龄对两组女性参与者（年轻成年人，n = 81；年长成年人，n = 76）风险接受度和决策表现的影响，并对初始风险感知进行了额外的实验操控。我们预测并证实，由于审慎过程中与年龄相关的衰退，衰老会显著降低行为BART测量指标的表现。研究发现，年长参与者表现出显著更高的风险厌恶和更低的BART表现，年龄的影响是由认知（处理速度）和动机（认知闭合需求）机制介导的。此外，由于经验过程效率的保持，年长成年人与年轻成年人一样，对初始失败（相对于成功）的适应方式相似。这些结果为将衰老在风险决策中的负面影响降至最低提供了未来的方向，并表明了在衰老过程中得以保持的补偿过程。
