Social Cognition and Aging

与决策能力有关的问题在经济、社会和文化领域日益引起人们的兴趣。 随着平均寿命的增加，老年学也在增加，沿着的是老年人的数量， 面临着重要的人生决定，涉及医疗保健、财务、临终关怀， 和住房。这一领域的研究重点之一是评估两者的能力， 理解并做出决策的人谁可能正在经历痴呆症的初始阶段 或其健康问题有损害其智力的危险。同样重要的是， 然而，我们了解健康老年人的判断和决策过程， 成年人受到与衰老有关的因素的影响。我们社会的变化导致了 这些人在各种各样的领域面临着越来越复杂的选择 这对身体和财务健康以及持续的独立性都有重要影响。它 也就是说，随着家庭越来越分散，技术进步的速度越来越快， 变化加速，老年人可能面临在没有足够的社会保障的情况下做出决定的问题。 以知识为基础的支持。最后，老年人越来越不成比例地 针对营销诈骗。因此，重要的是要了解衰老对 成为有效的信息评估者和做出适应性选择的能力。拟议 研究将通过一系列的七项研究，系统地研究决策和衰老。 这些研究将对25至85岁的人进行测试。研究的具体重点 是关于认知能力，情感，经验和动机之间的相互作用， 确定年龄在表现上的差异。判断与决策研究 这些过程也将帮助我们了解许多老年人的适应过程。 在这些领域保持有效技能的能力，面对能力的规范下降。

Issues relating to decision-making competence are of increasing interest in the field of gerontology as the average lifespan increases, along with the number of older individuals who are faced with important life decisions having to do with health care, finances, end-of-life care, and housing. One focus of research in this realm is the assessment of the ability to both comprehend and make decisions in people who may be experiencing initial stages of dementia or whose health problems are in danger of impairing their mental abilities. It is also critical, however, that we understand how judgment and decision-making processes in healthy older adults are affected by factors associated with aging. Changes in our society have resulted in these individuals being faced with increasingly complex choices in a wide-variety of domains with important implications for physical and financial well-being, and continued independence. It is also the case that as families become more widely dispersed and the rate of technological change accelerates, older adults may be faced with making decisions without adequate social and knowledge-based supports. Finally, older adults are increasingly and disproportionately targeted for marketing scams. Thus, it is important to understand the impact that aging has on the ability to be effective evaluators of information and to make adaptive choices. The proposed research will systematically examine decision-making and aging through a series of seven studies in which individuals aged from 25 to 85 will be tested. The specific focus of the research is on the interaction between cognitive ability, emotion, experience, and motivation in determining age differences in performance. Research on judgment and decision-making processes will also help us understand the adaptive processes underlying many older adults¿ ability to maintain effective skills in these domains in the face of normative declines in ability.