Complementary cognitive capabilities, economic decision making, and aging.

Complementary cognitive capabilities, economic decision making, and aging.

Fluid intelligence decreases with age, yet evidence about age declines in decision-making quality is mixed: Depending on the study, older adults make worse, equally good, or even better decisions than younger adults. We propose a potential explanation for this puzzle, namely that age differences in decision performance result from the interplay between two sets of cognitive capabilities that im...

Cognitive Capabilities , Decision Performance , and Aging

Intertemporal Decision-Making: Economic and Cognitive Perspectives

Intertemporal decision-making is a fundamental issue in the study of individual behavior. In this paper I review the economic approach to intertemporal decision-making by considering the behavioral assumptions that are implied by the Exponential and the Hyperbolic discounting models. Both approaches focus on how people evaluate utility ‡ows over time. However, there is evidence showing that the...

Risk, reward, and economic decision making in aging.

OBJECTIVES Older adults' decision quality is considered to be worse than that of younger adults. This age-related difference is often attributed to reductions in risk tolerance. Little is known about the circumstances that affect older adults' decisions and whether risk attitudes directly influence economic decisions. We measure the influence of risk attitudes on age-related differences in deci...

Cognitive Control and Individual Differences in Economic Ultimatum Decision-Making

Much publicity has been given to the fact that people's economic decisions often deviate from the rational predictions of standard economic models. In the classic ultimatum game, for example, most people turn down financial gains by rejecting unequal monetary splits. The present study points to neglected individual differences in this debate. After participants played the ultimatum game we test...