Department of Psychology, Institute on Aging, University of Florida, Gainesville.
Department of Aging and Geriatric Research, Institute on Aging, University of Florida, Gainesville.
J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci. 2020 Feb 14;75(3):522-533. doi: 10.1093/geronb/gby036.
Fraud in the aged is an emerging public health problem. An increasingly common form of deception is conducted online. However, identification of cognitive and socioemotional risk factors has not been undertaken yet. In this endeavor, this study extended previous work suggesting age effects on susceptibility to online deception.
Susceptibility was operationalized as clicking on the link in simulated spear-phishing emails that young (18-37 years), young-old (62-74 years), and middle-old (75-89 years) Internet users received, without knowing that the emails were part of the study. Participants also indicated for a set of spear-phishing emails how likely they would click on the embedded link (susceptibility awareness) and completed cognitive and socioemotional measures to determine susceptibility risk profiles.
Higher susceptibility was associated with lower short-term episodic memory in middle-old users and with lower positive affect in young-old and middle-old users. Greater susceptibility awareness was associated with better verbal fluency in middle-old users and with greater positive affect in young and middle-old users.
Short-term memory, verbal fluency, and positive affect in middle-old age may contribute to resilience against online spear-phishing attacks. These results inform mechanisms of online fraud susceptibility and real-life decision-supportive interventions toward fraud risk reduction in aging.
老年人欺诈是一个新出现的公共卫生问题。一种越来越常见的欺骗形式是在网上进行的。然而，尚未确定认知和社会情感风险因素。在这项研究中，该研究扩展了先前关于年龄对易受网络欺骗影响的研究。
易感性被定义为点击年轻（18-37 岁）、年轻老年人（62-74 岁）和中老年人（75-89 岁）互联网用户收到的模拟网络钓鱼电子邮件中的链接，而不知道这些电子邮件是研究的一部分。参与者还针对一组网络钓鱼电子邮件表示他们点击嵌入式链接的可能性（易感性意识），并完成认知和社会情感措施以确定易感性风险概况。
较高的易感性与中老年人的短期情景记忆较低以及年轻老年人和中老年人的积极情绪较低有关。更高的易感性意识与中老年人的言语流畅性更好以及年轻和中老年人的积极情绪更高有关。
中年时的短期记忆、言语流畅性和积极情绪可能有助于抵御网络钓鱼攻击。这些结果为在线欺诈易感性的机制以及针对老龄化过程中欺诈风险降低的现实生活决策支持干预措施提供了信息。
