Decision-Making Over the Lifespan: How Memory Affects Preferences

描述(由申请人提供)：这项提案认为，我们可以利用我们所知道的关于记忆在生命周期中变化的知识来理解决策是如何随着年龄的增长而变化的。建议的研究集中在四个重要的、稳健的、经过充分研究的决策现象上，这些现象对年轻人来说是有问题的，在老年人中可能更强：天赋效应、跨期选择的不对称性、默认效应和锚定。我们使用一种称为“偏好即记忆”(PAM)的决策方法，建立了人们如何在这些情况下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，这是一种随着生命过程而变化的记忆特征。然后，我们建议进行实验，使用个人管理的实验和基于网络的实验来测试这些模型，这些实验将对比老年人和年轻人表现出的偏好模式。使用网络可以让人们更快地接触到更广泛的老年人和年轻人。个人管理的实验允许更好的实验控制，并对新的方法和程序进行微调。我们的实验将采用在定义明确的决策任务中衡量选择和偏好的方法，以及在决策过程中隐含和显式地衡量信息检索的工具。通过进一步测量一系列额外认知领域的表现，我们还将能够测试将在研究中的偏好现象的替代中介机制。将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天赋效应(因此也就是更大的损失厌恶)，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。因为这项拟议的研究产生了记忆表征和过程如何影响决策的过程模型，所以它为能够帮助和改进决策的干预措施的发展提供了方向--在试图将重要决策(例如，关于养老金投资和医疗保健选择)从政府机构转移到个人身上的老龄化社会中，这是一个重要的贡献。

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.