Cognitive and social aspects of decision-making

University Of Colorado At Colorado Spgs, Colorado Springs CO

Investigators

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Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The study of decision making in older adults is critical for both theoretical and practical reasons. Despite the importance of this topic, there is limited empirical data describing how decision making changes in adulthood. The proposed project will examine the basic processes that underlie decision-making in older adults. A review of the literature suggests that older adults should rely more on heuristics and be more susceptible to environmental triggers than younger adults. However, a direct examination of the impact on decision-making has not been done. Specifically, we will examine the availability and anchoring heuristics in younger and older adults using modified versions of the traditional tasks designed by Tversky and Kahneman (1973, 1974). Finally, we will examine the impact of a negative stereotype trigger on the use of heuristics in older and younger adults. A total of 6 experiments are proposed over a three-year period. Experiment 1 examines the availability heuristic in young and older adults across several conditions that manipulate the amount of material presented. Experiment 2 examines the availability heuristic in older and young adults across two conditions that manipulate speed of presentation. It is hypothesized that older adults will demonstrate an increase in the availability heuristic on conditions with a large amount of material and with speeded presentation. Experiment 3 and 4 will examine the anchoring bias in two experiments that present an anchor randomly and with a decision agent present, respectively. We hypothesize an increase in the anchoring bias and more reliance on decision agents. Experiment 5 and 6 will introduce a negative stereotype trigger prior to the administration of an availability heuristic task and anchoring task. We hypothesize that the addition of a trigger will result in an increased bias across tasks and conditions as older adults switch from an analytic to rule-based mode.