Sharit Joseph, Moxley Jerad H, Czaja Sara J
Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida, USA.
Center on Aging and Behavioral Research, Division of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, New York, USA.
Innov Aging. 2021 May 20;5(2):igab017. doi: 10.1093/geroni/igab017. eCollection 2021.
Delay discounting is a common behavioral phenomenon that can influence decision making. A person with a higher discounting rate (DR) will have a stronger preference for smaller, more immediate rewards over larger, delayed rewards than will a person with a lower DR. This study used a novel approach to investigate, among a diverse sample of older adults, discounting of the time people were willing to invest to acquire technology skills across various technologies.
One hundred and eighty-seven male and female adults 65-92 years of age participated in the study and were given presentations on 5 different technologies spanning domains that included transportation, leisure, health, and new learning. A measure of discounting was computed based on participants' assessments of how much additional time they would be willing to spend to acquire increased skill levels on each of the technologies and their ratings of importance of attaining those skill levels. Measures of participants' perceived value of the technologies, technology readiness, and self-assessed cognitive abilities were also collected.
The findings indicated a significant and robust effect of lower DRs with increasing age. Higher perceived value of the technologies and higher levels of positive technology readiness predicted willingness to invest more time to learn the technologies, whereas self-assessments of cognitive abilities predicted the levels of technology skills that participants desired on the 5 technologies.
Our findings demonstrate that for realistic decision-making scenarios related to the acquisition of technology skills, DRs decrease with increasing age, even within an older adult cohort, and that discounting is related to the perceived value of the technology. The findings also have important implications for the design and marketing of technology products for older consumers.
延迟折扣是一种常见的行为现象，会影响决策。与折扣率较低的人相比，折扣率较高的人更倾向于选择较小的即时奖励，而非较大的延迟奖励。本研究采用一种新颖的方法，在不同的老年人群体样本中，调查人们愿意投入时间来掌握各种技术技能的时间折扣情况。
187名年龄在65至92岁之间的成年男女参与了该研究，并听取了关于5种不同技术的介绍，这些技术涵盖交通、休闲、健康和新学习等领域。根据参与者对为提高每种技术的技能水平愿意额外花费多少时间的评估，以及他们对达到这些技能水平重要性的评级，计算出折扣度量。还收集了参与者对技术的感知价值、技术准备度和自我评估认知能力的度量。
研究结果表明，随着年龄增长，折扣率降低具有显著且稳健的影响。对技术的较高感知价值和较高水平的积极技术准备度预示着愿意投入更多时间学习这些技术，而认知能力的自我评估则预示着参与者在这5种技术上期望达到的技术技能水平。
我们的研究结果表明，在与获取技术技能相关的现实决策场景中，即使在老年人群体中，折扣率也会随着年龄增长而降低，并且折扣与对技术的感知价值相关。这些发现对于面向老年消费者的技术产品设计和营销也具有重要意义。
