Horn Sebastian S, Schaltegger Thierry, Best Ryan, Freund Alexandra M
Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
Department of Psychology, West Virginia University, USA.
J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci. 2023 Jan 28;78(1):51-61. doi: 10.1093/geronb/gbac108.
This research addresses how younger and older adults' decisions and evaluations of gains and losses are affected by the way in which monetary incentives are provided. We compared 2 common incentive schemes in decision making: pay one (only a single decision is incentivized) and pay all (incentives across all decisions are accumulated).
Younger adults (18-36 years; n = 147) and older adults (60-89 years; n = 139) participated in either a pay-one or pay-all condition and made binary choices between two-outcome monetary lotteries in gain, loss, and mixed domains. We analyzed participants' decision quality, risk taking, and psychometric test scores. Computational modeling of cumulative prospect theory served to measure sensitivity to outcomes and probabilities, loss aversion, and choice sensitivity.
Decision quality and risk aversion were higher in the gain than mixed or loss domain, but unaffected by age. Loss aversion was higher, and choice sensitivity was lower in older than younger adults. In the pay-one condition, the value functions were more strongly curved, and choice sensitivity was higher than in the pay-all condition.
An opportunity of accumulating incentives has similar portfolio effects on younger and older adults' decisions. In general, people appear to decide less cautiously in pay-all than pay-one scenarios. The impact of different incentive schemes should be carefully considered in aging and decision research.
本研究探讨了年轻人和老年人对收益与损失的决策及评估如何受到货币激励提供方式的影响。我们比较了决策中两种常见的激励方案：单次支付（仅对单个决策给予激励）和累计支付（所有决策的激励累积计算）。
年轻人（18 - 36岁；n = 147）和老年人（60 - 89岁；n = 139）参与单次支付或累计支付条件下的实验，并在收益、损失和混合领域的二项结果货币彩票中做出二元选择。我们分析了参与者的决策质量、风险承担和心理测量测试分数。累积前景理论的计算模型用于测量对结果和概率的敏感性、损失厌恶和选择敏感性。
收益领域的决策质量和风险厌恶高于混合领域或损失领域，但不受年龄影响。老年人的损失厌恶更高，选择敏感性低于年轻人。在单次支付条件下，价值函数的曲线更陡峭，选择敏感性高于累计支付条件。
累积激励的机会对年轻人和老年人的决策具有相似的投资组合效应。总体而言，在累计支付情景中人们的决策似乎不如单次支付情景中谨慎。在衰老和决策研究中应仔细考虑不同激励方案的影响。
