Social and Neural Bases of Vulnerability to Fraud in Older Adults

描述（由申请人提供）：老年人不成比例地容易受到各种可疑的金融计划的影响，尽管他们脆弱的原因尚不清楚。我们提出了六项研究，使用实验和神经影像学方法来探索这种脆弱性的社会和神经基础。我们研究了信任的年龄差异和使用不可信线索解码面部表情的能力（研究1）;识别这些年龄差异背后的神经活动模式（研究2）;评估老年人是否比年轻人更积极地评估可信度不同的金融信息（研究3）;确定被认为是值得信赖的面孔是否会增强对低可信度投资信息的接受性（研究4）;解决老年人是否表现出检测欺骗的能力受损（研究5）;并确定与年龄相关的识别欺骗能力差异的神经基础（研究6）。此外，所有的研究都考察了性格信任、孤独、社会接触、认知功能、时间框架和金融知识如何影响信任、欺骗、金融信息及其神经基础的感知。总的来说，这些研究探讨了如何：社会孤立;老年人解码欺骗和识别不可信线索的能力下降;对陌生人的不适当的高度信任;情绪调节过程的年龄差异（较少的负面情绪体验和较多的正面情绪体验）;与处理负面刺激有关的大脑区域的功能存在年龄差异，特别是杏仁核、前额叶皮层、杏仁核，和上级颞沟（STS）与金融诈骗的脆弱性有关。老年人的财务健康对他们的身心健康至关重要。准确识别老年人为何容易受到金融诈骗的影响的能力，将有助于确定为减少这种脆弱性而可能制定的政策。 公共卫生相关性：老年人的财务健康与他们的身心健康需求密切相关，因为财务冲击可能是导致健康状况不佳的因素，包括冠心病，功能衰退和死亡率。此外，老年人的财务逆转对更广泛的社会有重大影响;因此，人们可能会更加依赖政府的医疗和财政支持计划，如医疗保险和社会保障。因此，老年人易受金融欺诈的公共卫生影响是多方面的。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Older adults are disproportionately vulnerable to a wide range of dubious financial schemes, although the reasons for their vulnerability are not clear. We propose six studies that use experimental and neuroimaging methodologies to explore the social and neural bases of this vulnerability. We examine age differences in trust and the ability to use cues of untrustworthiness to decode facial expressions (Study 1); identify patterns of neural activity underlying these age differences (Study 2); evaluate whether older adults evaluate financial messages that vary in credibility more positively than younger adults (Study 3); determine whether faces perceived to be trustworthy enhance receptivity to low credibility investment messages (Study 4); address whether older adults show impaired ability to detect deceit (Study 5); and identify the neural underpinnings of age-related differences in the ability to detect deceit (Study 6). In addition, all of the studies examine how dispositional trust, loneliness, social contact, cognitive functioning, time frame, and financial literacy affect perceptions of trust, deceit, financial messages, and their neural underpinnings. Taken together, the studies explore how: social isolation; declines in older adults' ability to decode deceit and recognize cues of untrustworthiness; an inappropriately high trust of strangers; age differences in emotion regulation processes (less frequent experience of negative emotion and more frequent experience of positive emotion); and age differences in the functioning of brain regions related to the processing of negative stimuli, especially the amygdala, prefrontal cortex, insula, and superior temporal sulcus (STS) are related to vulnerability to financial scams. The financial health of older adults is critically important for their mental and physical health. The ability to identify precisely why older adults demonstrate vulnerability to financial scams will be helpful in pinpointing policies that may be developed to reduce this vulnerability. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The financial health of older adults is critically related to their physical and mental health needs, as a financial shock can be a precipitating factor for poor health outcomes, including coronary heart disease, functional decline, and mortality. Further, financial reversals at older ages have significant implications for the wider society; as such people are likely to become more reliant on governmental health and financial support programs such as Medicare and Social Security. Consequently, the public health implications of older adults' vulnerability to financial fraud are manifold.