Social Cognition and Aging

与决策能力有关的问题在 老年学随着平均寿命的增加，随着老年个体的数量增加 面临着与医疗保健、财务、临终关怀有关的重要人生决定， 和住房。这一领域的研究重点之一是对两者能力的评估 理解并做出可能正处于痴呆症初期的人的决定 或其健康问题有损害其精神能力的危险。它也是至关重要的， 然而，我们了解到健康老年人的判断和决策过程 成年人受到与衰老相关的因素的影响。我们社会的变化导致了 这些人在各种各样的领域面临着日益复杂的选择 对身体和经济福祉以及持续的独立性具有重要影响。它 情况也是如此，随着家庭变得更加分散，技术进步的速度 变化加速，老年人可能面临在没有足够的社会支持的情况下做出决定 和基于知识的支持。最后，老年人越来越多，而且不成比例。 以营销诈骗为目标。因此，重要的是要了解老龄化对 成为有效的信息评估者和做出适应性选择的能力。建议数 研究将通过七个系列系统地检查决策和衰老 年龄在25岁到85岁之间的人将接受测试。这项研究的具体重点 是关于认知能力、情感、经验和动机之间的相互作用 确定年龄在表现上的差异。关于判断与决策的研究 这些过程还将帮助我们理解许多老年人背后的适应过程。 在标准能力下降的情况下，在这些领域保持有效技能的能力。

Issues relating to decision-making competence are of increasing interest in the field of gerontology as the average lifespan increases, along with the number of older individuals who are faced with important life decisions having to do with health care, finances, end-of-life care, and housing. One focus of research in this realm is the assessment of the ability to both comprehend and make decisions in people who may be experiencing initial stages of dementia or whose health problems are in danger of impairing their mental abilities. It is also critical, however, that we understand how judgment and decision-making processes in healthy older adults are affected by factors associated with aging. Changes in our society have resulted in these individuals being faced with increasingly complex choices in a wide-variety of domains with important implications for physical and financial well-being, and continued independence. It is also the case that as families become more widely dispersed and the rate of technological change accelerates, older adults may be faced with making decisions without adequate social and knowledge-based supports. Finally, older adults are increasingly and disproportionately targeted for marketing scams. Thus, it is important to understand the impact that aging has on the ability to be effective evaluators of information and to make adaptive choices. The proposed research will systematically examine decision-making and aging through a series of seven studies in which individuals aged from 25 to 85 will be tested. The specific focus of the research is on the interaction between cognitive ability, emotion, experience, and motivation in determining age differences in performance. Research on judgment and decision-making processes will also help us understand the adaptive processes underlying many older adults¿ ability to maintain effective skills in these domains in the face of normative declines in ability.