Seniors often decide worse

Seniors are quickly overwhelmed with risky decisions

03/10/2013

Seniors are more likely to be overwhelmed with risk decisions than younger people. This was the result of a study by US scientists at the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut. Thus, not only the ability to process information with age decreases but also the ability to make decisions.

Seniors play it safe instead of taking a risk
The neurobiologist Ifat Levy and her colleagues examined the risk-taking and decision-making ability of 135 subjects aged 12 to 90 years in their study. Overall, the study participants had to make 320 decisions about profit or loss, the researchers report in the „Proceedings "of the US National Academy of Sciences („They had the choice between a guaranteed $ 5 prize, a lottery that would have been priced higher at $ 8, and a rivet. As part of the loss test series, subjects had to decide if they would Losing five dollars, or even losing more or nothing, in this context, the scientists were also able to check the constancy of the decisions by drawing conclusions from the repetitions.

Overall, over 65-year-olds more frequently chose the guaranteed profit when making the profit decision than the 30- to 50-year-olds. The seniors showed contrasting behavior in the loss tests. Compared to the other age groups they lost an average of about 40 percent more of their gambling.

„We found that healthy seniors between the ages of 65 and 90 were remarkably inconsistent in their decisions compared to younger subjects. As with older people, there is a marked decrease in cognitive function, and they also show a profound reduction in the ability to choose rationally compared to the younger participants“, the researchers write. Thus, with age, there could be an increasing instability in decision-making and a decline in decision-making ability.

„We have found that risk appetite shows a reverse U-function across the lifespan, both seniors and adolescents are less willing to take risks than middle-aged participants“, states in the study. (Ag)

Picture: Rainer Sturm