Aging and Decision Making

Empirical and Applied Perspectives

Thomas M. Hess, JoNell Strough, Corinna Löckenhoff

• Publisher: Academic Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780124171480
• eBook ISBN: 9780124171558
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Geriatrics
• Index: Psychology

Decisions large and small play a fundamental role in shaping life course trajectories of health and well-being: decisions draw upon an individual's capacity for self-regulation and self-control, their ability to keep long-term goals in mind, and their willingness to place appropriate value on their future well-being. Aging and Decision Making addresses the specific cognitive and affective processes that account for age-related changes in decision making, targeting interventions to compensate for vulnerabilities and leverage strengths in the aging individual.This book focuses on four dominant approaches that characterize the current state of decision-making science and aging - neuroscience, behavioral mechanisms, competence models, and applied perspectives. Underscoring that choice is a ubiquitous component of everyday functioning, Aging and Decision Making examines the implications of how we invest our limited social, temporal, psychological, financial, and physical resources, and lays essential groundwork for the design of decision supportive interventions for adaptive aging that take into account individual capacities and context variables.- Divided into four dominant approaches that characterize the current state of decision-making science and aging neuroscience- Explores the impact of aging on the linkages between cortical structures/functions and the behavioral indices of decision-making- Examines the themes associated with behavioral approaches that attempt integrations of methods, models, and theories of general decision-making with those derived from the study of aging- Details the changes in underlying competencies in later life and the two prevailing themes that have emerged—one, the general individual differences perspective, and two, a more clinical focus

Chapter 1

The Present, Past, and Future of Research on Aging and Decision Making

JoNell Strough¹, Corinna E. Löckenhoff², and Thomas M. Hess^{3 1}Department of Psychology, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, USA ²Department of Human Development, College of Human Ecology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA ³Department of Psychology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

Abstract

In this chapter, we orient the reader to the emerging field of aging and decision making portrayed in this edited volume. We trace recent progress made in addressing issues identified by the National Research Council (2000, 2006) in three general areas: neurobiological mechanisms, behavioral mechanisms (including cognition, affect, and motivation), and applied perspectives that address decision making in specific contexts of everyday life. We then provide an overview of each of the chapters in the volume and highlight how each contributes to advances in current knowledge of aging and decision making.

Keywords

Affect; Applied; Behavior; Choice; Cognition; Contextual perspective; Life span; Motivation; Neuroscience

Two volumes published by the National Research Council in the United States at the beginning of the twenty-first century (National Research Council, 2000, 2006) emphasized that the “aging of America” created an immediate need to understand and promote effective functioning of older adults in their everyday lives—a need that is still urgent today (see Nielsen, this volume). The 2000 volume emphasized cognitive aging and the need for research addressing neural health, cognition in context, and the structure of the aging mind. The 2006 volume emphasized the importance of motivation, socioemotional functioning, and social contextual influences, including cultural attitudes about aging as well as ethnicity, race, and culture. Central to both reports was a call for a better understanding of age-related influences on decision making. Together, these two volumes set an agenda for studying aging and decision making that is reflected in much of the contemporary research on this topic, including the chapters in this book.

Since the turn of the millennium, the field of aging and decision making has dramatically expanded. Theoretical frameworks now incorporate affective, motivational, interpersonal, and neuroscience perspectives (to name just a few) in addition to cognition, and researchers have begun to consider a wide array of outcomes ranging from markers of neurological activation tracked over the course of seconds, to savings rates and long-term health trajectories tracked over the course of decades. For the purpose of this book, we broadly group this rich body of work into three sections devoted to neurobiological mechanisms, behavioral mechanisms (including cognition, affect, and motivation), and applied perspectives, although many of the chapters touch on multiple areas. We first consider some of the major issues within each of these broad areas in more detail and then provide a brief description of the individual chapters. The chapters themselves trace how research in each area has progressed since the publication of the volumes by the National Research Council (2000, 2006) and outline important new directions, as well as open questions and methodological challenges.

Basic Issues in the Study of Aging and Decisions

Neurobiological Mechanisms

Mather’s (2006) paper for the National Research Council called for greater integration of work on decision making with work on cognitive neuroscience. Neurobiological perspectives on aging and decision making have seen rapid development between 2000 and 2010 propelled in part by unprecedented progress in brain-imaging techniques. Our understanding of age-related structural changes in gross anatomy (often examined postmortem) is now enriched by functional images of the living brain available at increasingly higher spatial and temporal resolution.

Concomitant changes in theoretical frameworks have left their mark as well. The nascent field of decision neuroscience integrates neuroscience perspectives with disciplines traditionally associated with decision science including economics and psychology. Inspired by initiatives such as the Scientific Research Network on Decision Neuroscience and Aging (www.srndna.org), researchers have begun to apply this interdisciplinary perspective to the aging brain. As a result, research interest has expanded beyond attention and memory processes located in medial temporal and lateral cortical regions that have traditionally been the focus of cognitive aging research. In particular, Mather’s (2006) report targeted the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and orbitofrontal cortex as areas that could yield important insights because changes in these two regions of the brain are differentially linked to aging (see Raz & Rodrigue, 2006). Today, regions of growing interest for aging and decision making include prefrontal networks associated with executive functioning (Harlé & Sanfey, 2012), frontostriatial pathways linked to reward processing (Samanez-Larkin, Levens, Perry, Dougherty, & Knutson, 2012), and affective processes in the limbic system (Schott et al., 2007).

Many of the specific topics investigated from a neurobiological perspective reflect areas of interest outlined in the National Research Council reports (2000, 2006). For instance, neurobiological approaches have been used to address the role of motivation in older adults’ decision making by investigating the neural representation of rewards (e.g., Samanez-Larkin et al., 2007). Neuroimaging studies have also advanced our understanding of age differences in intertemporal choice (Eppinger, Nystrom, & Cohen, 2012), probabilistic decisions (Samanez-Larkin et al., 2012), and the ability to integrate novel information in complex decision scenarios (Eppinger, Hämmerer, & Li, 2011).

Although these recent developments have yielded large amounts of new data, the interpretation of this information is not without challenges. One basic hurdle is a lack of integration across methods and levels of analysis. How do age-related structural changes in gross anatomy, variations in neurotransmitter levels and receptors, and shifts in neural activity relate to each other, and how are they associated with behavioral changes in decision strategies and—ultimately—decision outcomes? Even more challenging is the search for underlying causal pathways. If we see empirical evidence for age differences in brain activation during a given decision task, does it reflect passive loss due to biological aging, active efforts at compensation, age-related increases in access to experience-based knowledge, or a motivated shift toward decision strategies that benefit emotion regulation? To further complicate matters, several of these mechanisms may operate at the same time and interact with one another. Researchers represented in this volume have begun to tackle these questions using a variety of strategies ranging from controlled experiments in animal models to the development of novel theoretical frameworks that allow for the integration of age patterns across tasks, brain regions, and levels of analysis.

Behavioral Mechanisms: Cognition, Affect, and Motivation

Much of the early research on age-related shifts in decision-making strategies and outcomes was informed by a cognitive aging perspective and focused on behavioral responses observed in laboratory settings (Yates & Patalano, 1999). In their paper for the National Research Council, Peters, Finucane, MacGregor, and Slovic (2000) noted a need for research investigating whether aging is associated with greater reliance on heuristic processing due to increases in experience and declines in cognitive abilities necessary for deliberative processing. Heuristic processing reflects using cognitive shortcuts such as availability (judging probabilities by how easily something comes to mind) instead of more effortful deliberation of facts. Although heuristics can be useful because they save time, reduce effort, and often yield “good enough” decisions (Epstein, 1994; Gigerenzer, 2008), they can also produce decisions that are systematically biased (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). In addition to prompting research on aging and heuristic processing, Peters et al. (2000) also noted a need for research on affect and decision making, a point that was elaborated on by Mather in her 2006 paper for the National Research Council. Mather (2006) further suggested that older adults’ decisions might be enhanced by effective control of emotions and focusing on emotionally salient goals.

An influential article published by Peters, Hess, Västfjäll, and Auman in 2007 expanded on these ideas by combining ideas from “dual-process” models of decision making (which posit two interacting decision modes, one based on reason and deliberation and another based on intuitions and heuristics arising from affect and experience; see Evans, 2008 for a review) with decades of basic research on age-related changes in cognition and affect to outline potential trajectories of decision making over the life span. This paper represented the fusion and cross-fertilization of ideas from two types of literature, adult development and behavioral decision making. Building on this, researchers increasingly focused on the implications of older adults’ cognitive and affective strengths and vulnerabilities for decision processes and outcomes. As the chapters in this volume show, this is a vigorous area of research. Recent work establishes that cognitive and affective mechanisms are both important for understanding decision making in later adulthood, and there is increasing appreciation that, in some contexts, experience and improvements in affect regulation can offset age-related cognitive declines, whereas in other contexts, relying on affect can have detrimental consequences for decisions.

The publication of the Peters, Hess, Västfjäll, and Auman’s (2007) article occurred alongside growing recognition by behavioral decision-making researchers that findings based solely on undergraduate college students may suffer from limited generalizability and thus have limited utility for addressing key societal issues presented by an aging population. Accordingly, investigators began to broaden the populations studied to include people of diverse ages. At about the same time, adult development and aging researchers began to adopt many of the standard tasks that decision scientists developed for laboratory research. Merging methods, theories, and findings from the adult development and aging and behavioral decision-making literature has proved fruitful. The number of studies addressing aging and decision making has increased substantially over the past decade, and a basic understanding of age differences in key decision-making competencies has begun to emerge.

In their 2000 paper for the National Research Council, Peters and colleagues pointed to a need to develop a reliable measure of decision-making competence to be used with older adults. Many of the standard laboratory tasks designed by decision scientists were originally created to reveal key decision biases and deviations from models of “rational” or “normative” decision making (models originating from economic theories and principles addressing how to maximize favorable outcomes). These standard tasks often pit decisions based on logic and reason against decisions based on emotions and intuition. This makes them ideal not only for testing ideas about cognitive and affective underpinnings of decisions, but also ideas about aging and decision-making competence. Researchers have begun to address how some of the key aspects of decision-making competence described by Peters et al. (2000)—such as the ability to resist irrelevant variations in how information is presented (i.e., “framing effects”) and the ability to effectively integrate information—differ by age, and how performance on standard tasks can be used to reliably measure decision-making competence (see Bruine de Bruin, Parker, & Fischhoff, 2007; Finucane & Gullion, 2010). Chapters in this volume discuss necessary next steps in this area of research.

The chapters in this volume also address other research topics identified by the National Research Council (2000, 2006) to varying degrees. For instance, one theme that cuts across several chapters is the importance of taking age differences in motivation and goals into account, and the associated need to examine contextual influences on older adults’ decisions. Age differences in risky decisions and older adults’ ability to learn from repeated decisions are starting to be better understood (e.g., Mather et al., 2012; Rolison, Hanoch, & Wood, 2012; Weller et al., 2014), but mu...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• Contributors
• Foreword
• Preface
• Chapter 1. The Present, Past, and Future of Research on Aging and Decision Making
• Section 1. Neurobiological Mechanisms
• Section 2. Behavioral Mechanisms
• Section 3. Applied Perspectives
• Index