Decision-Making Over the Lifespan: How Memory Affects Preferences

描述（由申请人提供）：该提案认为，我们可以利用我们对生命周期中记忆变化的了解来理解决策是如何随着年龄的增长而变化的。该研究集中于四个重要的、强有力的、研究充分的决策现象：禀赋效应、跨期选择的不对称、默认效应和锚定。这些现象对年轻人来说是有问题的，对老年人来说可能更强。使用一种被称为“偏好-记忆”（PAM）的决策方法，我们开发了人们在这些情况下如何做出判断和选择的模型，并描述了记忆过程在偏好构建过程中的作用，特别是干扰的作用，这是一种随生活过程而变化的记忆特征。然后，我们提出实验来测试这些模型，使用个人管理和基于网络的实验，对比老年人和年轻人表现出的偏好模式。使用网络可以让一个人更快地接触到广泛的老年人和年轻人。个人管理的实验允许更大的实验控制和对新方法和程序的微调。我们的实验将采用在明确定义的决策任务中测量选择和偏好的方法，以及在隐式和显式决策过程中测量信息检索的工具。通过进一步测量在一系列额外认知领域的表现，我们也将能够测试将被研究的偏好现象的替代中介机制之间的关系。将被研究的决策现象对老年人的福利有影响。例如，如果老年人表现出更大的禀赋效应（因此更大的损失厌恶），他们可能会更依恋某些财产，避免改变，即使这可能不符合他们的最佳利益。由于提出的研究产生了记忆表征和过程如何影响决策的过程模型，它为可以帮助和改善决策的干预措施的发展提供了方向——这是在老龄化社会中试图将重要决策（例如，养老金投资和医疗保健选择）从政府机构转移到个人的重要贡献。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal argues that we can leverage what we know about memory changes over the lifespan to understand how decision-making changes as people get older. The proposed research concentrates on four important, robust and well-studied decision phenomena that are problematic for younger adults and may be stronger in older adults: The endowment effect, asymmetries in intertemporal choice, default effects, and anchoring. Using an approach to decision-making called "Preferences-as- Memories" (PAM), we develop models of how people make judgments and choices in these situations and describe the role of memory processes in the process of preference construction, particularly the role of interference, a memory characteristic which changes over the life course. We then propose experiments to test these models using both personally administered and web-based experiments that will contrast the pattern of preferences exhibited by older adults with those of younger adults. Using the web allows one to reach a broad population of older and younger adults more quickly. Personally administered experiments allow for greater experimental control and for a fine-tuning of new methodologies and procedures. Our experiments will employ methods for measuring choices and preferences in well-defined decision-making tasks, along with tools for measuring information retrieval during decision-making both implicitly and explicitly. By further measuring performance in a range of additional cognitive domains, we will also be able to test between alternative mediating mechanisms for the preference phenomena that will be under study. The decision-making phenomena that will be examined have implications for the welfare of older adults. If, for example, older people show greater endowment effects (and therefore greater loss aversion), they may be more attached to some possessions and avoid change, even when this may not be in their best interest. Because the proposed research generates process models of how memory representations and processes affect decisions, it provides directions for the development of interventions that can aid and improve decisions - an important contribution in an aging society that tries to shift important decisions (e.g., on pension investments and health care choices) from government agencies to individuals.