Psychological Development and Education ›› 2016, Vol. 32 ›› Issue (1): 114-120.doi: 10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2016.01.15

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Older Adults' Decision Process in the Context of Cognitive Aging:Motivation as a Moderator

PU Bingyan, PENG Huamao   

  1. Institute of Developmental Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
  • Online:2016-01-15 Published:2016-01-15

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Abstract: Research on aging and decision making has yielded inconsistent results. We provide a review of research on the multifaceted impact of aging on decision making from the decision processes perspective. When considering the cognitive decline, older adults examine fewer pieces of information, use noncompensatory strategies and more likely to engage in an attribute-based search before making a decision. When considering the the change of motivation, older adults focus on the adjustment of emotion, and then tend to search more positive information and use noncompensatory strategies to avoid negative emotion induced by explicit trade-offs between features. The motivation can mediate the negative influence of cognitive aging on older adults' decision making. Specifically, the Socioemotional Selectivity Theory and Selective Engagement Hypothesis assume that decision task accord with social goal of older adults will increase the motivation to devote the cognitive resources, and then the older adults' decision performance will not be hampered by the limited cognitive resources. The future studies may conduct the precise experimental studies to further clarify whether or not the interaction between cognition and motivation may influence the older adults' decision-making performance and how. The comprehensive use of process tracing technologies will help avoid the defect of single technology. Considering the age difference of social goals, we should focus on the subjective quality when assessing the quality of older adults' decisions.

Key words: motivation, social goals, cognitive aging, decision process

CLC Number: 

  • B844

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