Journal
PSYCHOLOGY AND AGING
Volume 31, Issue 7, Pages 737-746Publisher
AMER PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOC
DOI: 10.1037/pag0000131
Keywords
aging; decision making; discounting; domain specificity; reward
Categories
Funding
- National Institute on Aging Pathway to Independence Award [R00-AG042596]
- National Institute on Aging [R01-AG044838]
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Although research on aging and decision making continues to grow, the majority of studies examine decisions made to maximize monetary earnings or points. It is not clear whether these results generalize to other types of rewards. To investigate this, we examined adult age differences in 92 healthy participants aged 22 to 83. Participants completed 9 hypothetical discounting tasks, which included 3 types of discounting factors (time, probability, effort) across 3 reward domains (monetary, social, health). Participants made choices between a smaller magnitude reward with a shorter time delay/higher probability/lower level of physical effort required and a larger magnitude reward with a longer time delay/lower probability/higher level of physical effort required. Older compared with younger individuals were more likely to choose options that involved shorter time delays or higher probabilities of experiencing an interaction with a close social partner or receiving health benefits from a hypothetical drug. These findings suggest that older adults may be more motivated than young adults to obtain social and health rewards immediately and with certainty.
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