Age Differences in Dual Processes and Decision Making

老年人和年轻人在处理信息的方式上有区别吗？他们会因此做出系统性不同的决定吗？我们如何帮助老年人做出更好的决定？这项拟议的研究的目的是考察成人在情感(基于感觉)和深思熟虑(基于思维)信息加工过程中的年龄差异，以了解这种双重信息加工可能如何影响判断和决定。将进行五个实验，以研究老年人是否会比年轻人对情感体验做出更多反应并从中学到更多东西，以及相关和无关的情感来源是否会对老年人的决策表现产生更大影响。这些任务的目的是找出可能损害老年人表现的因素，并测试提高他们决策能力的方法。这项研究将增加越来越多的关于情感和深思熟虑的思维方式如何遵循特定发展路径的知识。此外，提高决策能力的建议主要是基于对年轻人的研究。然而，决策对所有年龄段的人来说都是必不可少的，越来越多的老年人被要求自己做决定。健康和财务决策不再完全由家庭医生等专家决定。相反，与前几代人相比，老年人面临着更多的选择和更多的信息，他们在人生的某个阶段仔细考虑重要决定的能力可能正在下降。了解老年人做出判断和决定的心理过程将有助于我们确定他们可能最脆弱的领域，并指导帮助他们保持健康、经济安全和生活质量的努力。

Do older and younger adults differ in how they process information? Do they make systematically different decisions as a result? How can we help older adults make better decisions? The aim of the proposed research is to examine adult age differences in affective (feeling-based) and deliberative (thought-based) information processes in order to understand how such dual information processing might impact judgments and decisions. Five experiments will be conducted to study whether older adults may react more to and learn more from affective experiences than younger adults and whether relevant and irrelevant sources of feelings may impact older-adult decision performance more. The tasks are intended to identify factors that might hurt older adult performance and to test methods to enhance their decision making.This research will add to the growing body of knowledge concerning how affective and deliberative ways of thinking may follow particular developmental paths. In addition, proposals to improve decision-making abilities are based primarily on research with younger adults. Decision making is essential to life at all ages, however, and older adults are increasingly being asked to make their own decisions. No longer are health and financial decisions left entirely to specialists such as the family doctor. Instead, older adults are faced with more choices and more information than in previous generations at a point in their lives when their abilities to deliberate carefully about important decisions may be declining. Understanding the psychological processes that underlie the judgments and decisions of older adults will help us to identify areas in which they may be most vulnerable and guide efforts to help them maintain their health, financial security, and quality of life.