The University of Southampton
University of Southampton Institutional Repository

Age differences in decision making: to take a risk or not?

Age differences in decision making: to take a risk or not?
Age differences in decision making: to take a risk or not?
A controlled laboratory experiment was used to assess the efficacy of the cognitive processes that underlie risk taking decision making in young and elderly people. Thirty-six participants took part in the study; half the subjects were elderly (mean age of 74) and the other half were young adults (mean age of 19). The elderly participants made equivalent decisions to those of the control young adults. Both age-groups of participants systematically and comparably changed their behavior as a function of risk levels. Furthermore, the elderly participants, relative to young adults, did not exhibit any slowing down in the speed of processing the information involved in making risk taking decisions, reflecting that healthy elderly people are cognitively apt to making risk taking decisions. Both age-groups took comparably less time on the easy trials (trials with either low or high levels of risk) and comparably more time on the difficult trials (trials with medium levels of risk).
0304-324X
67-71
Dror, Itiel E.
4d907da2-0a2e-41ed-b927-770a70a35c71
Katona, Michelle
4f521eeb-8216-41ce-8331-f9ff3d037b72
Mungur, Krishna
4b5534c6-21ac-429f-a163-3ea9a47a8741
Dror, Itiel E.
4d907da2-0a2e-41ed-b927-770a70a35c71
Katona, Michelle
4f521eeb-8216-41ce-8331-f9ff3d037b72
Mungur, Krishna
4b5534c6-21ac-429f-a163-3ea9a47a8741

Dror, Itiel E., Katona, Michelle and Mungur, Krishna (1998) Age differences in decision making: to take a risk or not? Gerontology, 44 (2), 67-71. (doi:10.1159/000021986).

Record type: Article

Abstract

A controlled laboratory experiment was used to assess the efficacy of the cognitive processes that underlie risk taking decision making in young and elderly people. Thirty-six participants took part in the study; half the subjects were elderly (mean age of 74) and the other half were young adults (mean age of 19). The elderly participants made equivalent decisions to those of the control young adults. Both age-groups of participants systematically and comparably changed their behavior as a function of risk levels. Furthermore, the elderly participants, relative to young adults, did not exhibit any slowing down in the speed of processing the information involved in making risk taking decisions, reflecting that healthy elderly people are cognitively apt to making risk taking decisions. Both age-groups took comparably less time on the easy trials (trials with either low or high levels of risk) and comparably more time on the difficult trials (trials with medium levels of risk).

This record has no associated files available for download.

More information

Published date: 1998

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 18334
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/18334
ISSN: 0304-324X
PURE UUID: 71c8318d-b8f0-4af8-8660-b704b3e9ebc8

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 11 Jan 2006
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 06:04

Export record

Altmetrics

Contributors

Author: Itiel E. Dror
Author: Michelle Katona
Author: Krishna Mungur

Download statistics

Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.

View more statistics

Atom RSS 1.0 RSS 2.0

Contact ePrints Soton: eprints@soton.ac.uk

ePrints Soton supports OAI 2.0 with a base URL of http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/cgi/oai2

This repository has been built using EPrints software, developed at the University of Southampton, but available to everyone to use.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we will assume that you are happy to receive cookies on the University of Southampton website.

×