Social and Neural Bases of Vulnerability to Fraud in Older Adults

描述(由申请人提供)：老年人特别容易受到各种可疑财务计划的影响，尽管他们脆弱的原因尚不清楚。我们提出了六项研究，使用实验和神经成像方法来探索这种漏洞的社会和神经基础。我们考察了信任的年龄差异和利用不值得信任的线索解码面部表情的能力(研究1)；确定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差异较大的金融信息(研究3)；确定被认为值得信任的面孔是否提高了对低可信度投资信息的接受度(研究4)；解决老年人是否表现出识别欺骗的能力受损(研究5)；以及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，所有研究都考察了性格信任、孤独感、社交、认知功能、时间框架和金融知识如何影响人们对信任、欺骗、金融信息及其神经基础的认知。综上所述，这些研究探索了：社交隔离；老年人解码欺骗和识别不值得信赖的线索的能力下降；对陌生人的过度信任；情绪调节过程中的年龄差异(较少经历负面情绪，更频繁地体验积极情绪)；以及与处理负面刺激有关的大脑区域的年龄差异，特别是杏仁核、前额叶皮质、脑岛和颞上沟(STS)与金融诈骗的脆弱性有关。老年人的经济健康对他们的心理和身体健康至关重要。能够准确地确定为什么老年人表现出对金融诈骗的脆弱性，这将有助于确定可能制定的政策，以减少这种脆弱性。 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诱因，包括冠心病、功能衰退和死亡率。此外，老年人的经济逆转对更广泛的社会具有重大影响；因为这样的人可能会变得更加依赖政府的健康和财政支持计划，如联邦医疗保险和社会保障。因此，老年人对金融欺诈的脆弱性对公共健康的影响是多方面的。

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.