Affective and Deliberative Processes in Decision Making Across the Adult Life Span

许多西方社会正在迅速老龄化--例如，在美国，人口学家预测，由于过去一个世纪预期寿命的增加，未来20年老年人口的数量将大幅增加。这一趋势引起了决策研究人员和政策分析师的担忧，因为老年人越来越多地承担着在退休计划、财务管理和医疗保健等领域做出关键、复杂决策的任务，同时他们在对决策至关重要的深思熟虑的心理过程中也在下降。这项拟议的研究将考察老年人使用的推理策略是否可以帮助他们克服与衰老相关的认知缺陷，并允许他们在最重要的生活领域做出有效的选择。也就是说，这项拟议的研究将检验，在以后的生活中，动机向情感目标和直觉推理的转变是否有助于缓解对最佳决策至关重要的深思熟虑的认知过程的下降。更具体地说，这项研究将：(1)考察年轻人和老年人对情感/直觉决策过程与认知/商议决策过程的依赖程度，以及与年轻人和老年人使用的不同策略相关的因素；(2)探索随着年龄的增长而发生的无数变化--包括认知衰退、情感过程的保存、动机向情感目标的转变以及对生活体验的增加--影响决策；以及(3)揭示情感决策过程与商议决策过程在整个成年人一生中的积极和负面下游后果。通过追求这三个目标，这个项目承诺增加我们对成人一生中决策过程中情感和深思熟虑过程的理解，并指导如何改善老年人和年轻人的决策过程的禁止性建议。

Many Western societies are rapidly aging - in the United States, for example, demographers project a dramatic increase in the number of older adults in the next 20 years due to the increase in life expectancy over the past century. This trend raises concern among decision researchers and policy analysts because older adults are being charged more and more with the task of making crucial, complex decisions in such areas as retirement planning, financial management, and healthcare at the same time they are experiencing declines in deliberative psychological processes critical to decision making. The proposed research will examine whether the reasoning strategies older adults employ might help them overcome the cognitive deficits associated with aging and allow them to make effective choices in the most consequential life domains. That is, the proposed research will examine whether motivational shifts toward emotional goals and intuitive reasoning in later life could help assuage the declines in the deliberative cognitive processes critical to optimal decision making. More specifically, the research will: (1) examine the extent to which younger and older adults rely on affective/intuitive versus cognitive/deliberative decision processes and the factors associated with the different strategies employed by younger and older adults;(2) explore how the myriad changes that occur with increased age - including cognitive decline, preservation of emotional processes, motivational shifts toward emotional goals, and increased life experience - impact decision making; and (3) uncover the positive and negative downstream consequences of affective versus deliberative decision processes across the adult life span. By pursuing these three aims, this project promises to increase our understanding of affective and deliberative processes in decision making across the adult life span, and guide the way to proscriptive recommendations for how to improve decision making among both older and younger adults.