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Age Differences in Trade-off Decisions: Different Strategies but Similar Outcomes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 March 2015

Xiaodong Ma  and
Yiwei Chen
Xiaodong Ma*
Affiliation:
University of Houston-Clear Lake
Yiwei Chen
Affiliation:
Bowling Green State University
*
*La correspondance et les demandes de tirés-à-part doivent être adressées à: / Correspondence and requests for offprints should be sent to: Xiaodong Ma, Ph.D. Department of Psychology University of Houston–Clear Lake 2700 Bay Area Blvd. Houston, TX 77058 (maxiao@uhcl.edu)
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Abstract

The primary purpose of this study was to examine age differences in processing strategies of emotionally difficult trade-off decisions. In addition, the study tested the relevant contributions of the cognitive and emotional mechanisms to age differences in processing strategies. Altogether, 40 younger adults and 40 older adults were randomly assigned to either a high or low emotionally difficult condition of a car-purchasing decision task. MouselabWEB software was used to trace participants’ processing strategies. Results showed that older adults were more likely to use attribute-based processing strategies, whereas younger adults were more likely to use alternative-based processing strategies in the high-emotion condition. In the low-emotion condition, on the other hand, both younger and older adults preferred to use alternative-based processing strategies. Furthermore, the results suggested that the cognitive measure (i.e., digit symbol coding) was not correlated with the age effects on processing strategies.

Résumé

L'objectif principal de cette étude était d'examiner les différences conditionnées par l'âge dans le traitement des stratégies de décisions émotionnellement difficiles. En outre, l'étude a testé les contributions pertinentes des mécanismes cognitifs et émotionnels à des différences dans le traitement de ces stratégies conditionnées par l'âge. Quarante jeunes adultes et quarante adultes plus âgés, en tout, ont été assignés au hasard soit à un niveau élevé ou à un niveau bas de difficulté émotionnelle qu'implique la décision d'acheter une automobile. MouselabWEB logiciel a été utilisé pour tracer les stratégies de traitement des partici- pants. Les résultats ont montré que les personnes âgées étaient plus susceptibles d'utiliser des stratégies de traitement basées sur les attributs, tandis que les jeunes adultes étaient plus susceptibles d'utiliser des stratégies de traitement basées sur des solutions de rechange à l'état très émotive. D'autre part, les jeunes adultes et les adultes plus âgés ont préféré utiliser des stratégies de traitement fondées sur des alternatives dans des conditions d'émotion faible. De plus, les résultats suggèrent que la mesure cognitive (c'est à dire, programmation de chiffres-symboles) n'était pas corrélée avec les effets de l'âge sur les stratégies de traitement.

Keywords

agingemotionprocessing strategiesvieillissmentémotionstratégies de traitement
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal on Aging / La Revue canadienne du vieillissement , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , June 2015 , pp. 247 - 256
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Association on Gerontology 2015 

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