The Role of Affect in Decisions Involving Risk across the Adult Life Span

虽然传统上被认为是一种认知努力，但最近的理论和研究强调了情绪在决策中的作用。特别是，越来越清楚的是，影响的各个方面对涉及风险的决策至关重要。众所周知，人类的衰老会带来情感和认知方面的重大变化，因此决策的动力也会随着年龄的增长而改变。例如，与年轻人相比，老年人更注重情感，更倾向于积极和消极的信息。年龄引起的人们选择方式的变化对涉及金融和健康领域风险的决定尤其重要。鉴于西方社会老年人的比例正接近前所未有的水平，这些与年龄相关的变化具有重大的社会影响。随着越来越多的老年人负责做出重要的财务和健康决定，了解老年人如何做出这些决定变得越来越重要。与年龄相关的情感变化是如何导致更多或更少的冒险行为的？这些与年龄相关的变化如何影响不同的财务和健康相关的判断和决定？本研究的目的是通过检查财务和健康相关风险决策的不同情感影响来解决这些问题，并调和目前关于衰老和风险承担的不一致的发现。在一系列的研究中，本研究将考察积极和消极的影响，包括决策的整体和附带影响，如何影响对风险的态度。将收集整体和附带影响的生理测量，以检查影响在一系列任务中影响风险承担的机制路径，从经验依赖的金融投资任务到操纵损失存在的多种描述性金融和医疗框架任务。整体影响和偶然影响以及觉醒对各年龄组决策的差异和联合影响将与所有研究中的认知变化进行对比。获得的研究结果将有助于制定干预措施和风险沟通战略，以及旨在帮助老年人做出重大决定的新政策。最终，该项目将在更好地理解成人一生中风险决策的情感基础方面取得重大进展。

Though traditionally considered a cognitive endeavor, recent theory and research highlight the role of emotion in decision making. In particular, it has become increasingly clear that various aspects of affect are central to decisions involving risk. Because human aging is known to bring substantial change in emotion and cognition, the dynamics of decision making change as we grow older. For instance, older adults are more emotion-focused and are biased toward positive versus negative information relative to younger adults. Age induced changes in the way people make choices are particularly consequential for decisions involving risk in financial and health domains. These age-related changes have major societal implications given that the proportion of older adults in Western societies is approaching unprecedented levels. As greater numbers of older adults are charged with making crucial financial and health decisions, understanding how older individuals make such decisions becomes increasingly critical. How might age-related changes in affect lead to more or less risk taking? How do such age-related changes impact different financial and health-related judgments and decisions? The objective of this research is to address these questions and reconcile currently inconsistent findings regarding aging and risk taking by examining different affective influences across financial and health-related risky decisions.In a series of studies this research will examine how positive and negative affect, both integral to and incidental to the decision being made, influence attitudes toward risk. Physiological measures of integral and incidental affect will be collected to examine the mechanistic paths through which affect influences risk taking across a range of tasks from an experience-dependent financial investment task and multiple descriptive financial and medical framing tasks that manipulate the presence of loss. The differential and combined effects of integral and incidental affect as well as arousal on decision making across age groups will be contrasted with cognitive changes across all studies. The findings obtained will facilitate the development of interventions and risk communication strategies, as well as new policies aimed at assisting older adults as they make consequential decisions. Ultimately, this project will make strides toward better understanding the affective underpinnings of risky decision making across the adult life span.