The Role of Affect in Decisions Involving Risk across the Adult Life Span

虽然传统上被认为是一种认知努力，但最近的理论和研究强调了情绪在决策中的作用。特别是，越来越清楚的是，影响的各个方面是涉及风险的决策的核心。因为众所周知，人类的衰老会在情感和认知方面带来实质性的变化，随着我们年龄的增长，决策的动态也会发生变化。例如，老年人更注重情感，相对于年轻人来说，他们更倾向于正面信息而不是负面信息。年龄导致的人们做出选择的方式的变化，对涉及金融和健康领域风险的决策尤其重要。鉴于西方社会中老年人的比例正在接近前所未有的水平，这些与年龄相关的变化具有重大的社会影响。随着越来越多的老年人负责做出关键的财务和健康决定，了解老年人是如何做出这些决定的变得越来越重要。与年龄相关的影响变化会如何导致或多或少的冒险行为？这种与年龄相关的变化如何影响与财务和健康相关的不同判断和决定？这项研究的目的是通过考察金融和健康相关风险决策中不同的情感影响，来解决这些问题，并协调目前关于老龄化和冒险的不同发现。在一系列研究中，本研究将检验积极和消极影响如何影响对风险的态度，这些影响既是决策的组成部分，也是附带的。综合和附带影响的生理测量将被收集，以检查影响风险承担的机械路径，这些影响跨越一系列任务，从依赖经验的金融投资任务到操纵损失存在的多个描述性金融和医疗框架任务。不同年龄段的整体情感、附带情感以及唤醒对决策的不同和综合影响将与所有研究中的认知变化进行对比。所获得的结果将有助于制定干预措施和风险沟通战略，以及旨在帮助老年人做出相应决定的新政策。最终，这个项目将在更好地理解成年人一生中高风险决策的情感基础方面取得进展。

Though traditionally considered a cognitive endeavor, recent theory and research highlight the role of emotion in decision making. In particular, it has become increasingly clear that various aspects of affect are central to decisions involving risk. Because human aging is known to bring substantial change in emotion and cognition, the dynamics of decision making change as we grow older. For instance, older adults are more emotion-focused and are biased toward positive versus negative information relative to younger adults. Age induced changes in the way people make choices are particularly consequential for decisions involving risk in financial and health domains. These age-related changes have major societal implications given that the proportion of older adults in Western societies is approaching unprecedented levels. As greater numbers of older adults are charged with making crucial financial and health decisions, understanding how older individuals make such decisions becomes increasingly critical. How might age-related changes in affect lead to more or less risk taking? How do such age-related changes impact different financial and health-related judgments and decisions? The objective of this research is to address these questions and reconcile currently inconsistent findings regarding aging and risk taking by examining different affective influences across financial and health-related risky decisions.In a series of studies this research will examine how positive and negative affect, both integral to and incidental to the decision being made, influence attitudes toward risk. Physiological measures of integral and incidental affect will be collected to examine the mechanistic paths through which affect influences risk taking across a range of tasks from an experience-dependent financial investment task and multiple descriptive financial and medical framing tasks that manipulate the presence of loss. The differential and combined effects of integral and incidental affect as well as arousal on decision making across age groups will be contrasted with cognitive changes across all studies. The findings obtained will facilitate the development of interventions and risk communication strategies, as well as new policies aimed at assisting older adults as they make consequential decisions. Ultimately, this project will make strides toward better understanding the affective underpinnings of risky decision making across the adult life span.