Taylor Morgan K, Marsh Elizabeth J, Samanez-Larkin Gregory R
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University.
Psychol Aging. 2023 Sep;38(6):508-518. doi: 10.1037/pag0000726. Epub 2023 Feb 9.
In general, research on aging and decision-making has grown in recent years. Yet, little work has investigated how reliance on classic heuristics may differ across adulthood. For example, younger adults rely on the availability of information from memory when judging the relative frequency of plane crashes versus car accidents, but it is unclear if older adults are similarly reliant on this heuristic. In the present study, participants aged 20-90 years old made judgments that could be answered by relying on five different heuristics: anchoring, availability, recognition, representativeness, and sunk-cost bias. We found no evidence of age-related differences in the use of the classic heuristics-younger and older adults employed anchoring, availability, recognition, and representativeness to equal degrees in order to make decisions. However, replicating past work, we found age-related differences in the sunk-cost bias-older adults were more likely to avoid this fallacy compared to younger adults. We explain these different patterns by drawing on the distinctive roles that stored knowledge and personal experience likely play across heuristics. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).
一般来说，近年来关于衰老与决策的研究有所增加。然而，很少有研究探讨在整个成年期对经典启发式方法的依赖可能存在怎样的差异。例如，年轻人在判断飞机坠毁与汽车事故的相对频率时，会依赖记忆中信息的可得性，但尚不清楚老年人是否同样依赖这种启发式方法。在本研究中，年龄在20至90岁之间的参与者做出的判断可以通过依赖五种不同的启发式方法来回答：锚定、可得性、识别、代表性和沉没成本偏差。我们没有发现使用经典启发式方法存在年龄相关差异的证据——年轻人和老年人在做出决策时同等程度地运用了锚定、可得性、识别和代表性。然而，与过去的研究一致，我们发现了沉没成本偏差存在年龄相关差异——与年轻人相比，老年人更有可能避免这种谬误。我们通过借鉴存储的知识和个人经验在不同启发式方法中可能发挥的独特作用来解释这些不同的模式。（PsycInfo数据库记录（c）2023美国心理学会，保留所有权利）
