# Presentation: 025540

## Aging and Emotional Goals: Implications for Risk Seeking

- University of California, Santa Cruz

## Focus on emotional goals increases as time left in life decreases (Carstensen, Isaacowitz, & Charles, 1999)
Compared with younger adults, older adults show a positivity effect in attention and memory          (for reviews see Carstensen et al., 2006; Mather & Carstensen, 2005)
Is the positivity effect the result of goal-directed strategic processes or a serendipitous side effect of age-related decline? 

- Compared with younger adults, older adults show a positivity effect in attention and memory          (for reviews see Carstensen et al., 2006; Mather & Carstensen, 2005)
- Is the positivity effect the result of goal-directed strategic processes or a serendipitous side effect of age-related decline?

## Reducing goal-directed cognition by occupying cognitive resources

## Under full attention, there is an age by valence interaction

- Younger Adults

- Older Adults

*Mather & Knight (2005), Psychology and Aging*

- Positive

- Negative

- Neutral

## For young, divided attention does not affect which valence is most memorable

- Younger Adults

- Older Adults

*Mather & Knight (2005), Psychology and Aging*

- Positive

- Negative

- Neutral

## But the valence of older adults’ memories is affected by the availability of attentional resources

- Younger Adults

- Older Adults

*Mather & Knight (2005), Psychology and Aging*

- Positive

- Negative

- Neutral

## Are cognitive resources required for positivity effect in initial attention?

- Preliminary results presented from an eyetracking study...

## Summary

- Positivity effect in attention and memory among older adults is the result of strategic processes
- What implications might goal-directed emotion regulation processes have for risky decisions?

## Lab studies of risky decisions reveal few consistent age differences

- Little evidence of increased risk aversion on Iowa Gambling Task (Denberg et al., 2001; MacPherson et al., 2002; Sanfey et al., 2003; Wood et al., 2005)
- However, one consistent finding is an increase in decision avoidance (for a review see Mather, 2006)

## How might focus on emotion regulation influence risky decisions?

- Regret/satisfaction with choice outcomes is largely determined by the counterfactuals that come to mind (Kahneman & Miller, 1986)
- When forecasting future emotions, sure-thing options provide the most concrete counterfactual

## Questions for future research

- Is older adults’ tendency to choose the sure-thing option due to the affect heuristic or emotion regulation? (e.g., Slovic, Finucane, Peters, MacGregor, 2004)
- How might this tendency affect loss aversion?
- How do these age changes relate to changes in the brain?

## Conclusions

- Older adults use cognitive resources for emotion regulation purposes in their attention and memory
- This increased focus on emotion regulation may influence risky decisions, making sure-thing options more attractive.
- Emotion regulation focus may also influence decision search, variety seeking and memory for decisions (e.g., Mather & Johnson, 2000; Mather, Knight, & McCaffrey, 2005; Novak & Mather, under review)

## Acknowledgements

- _Eyetracking Study__	__	__ Gambling Study_
- Chris Baker			 Dan Ariely
- Josh Gaunt			 Nina Mazar
- Marisa Knight			 Kia Nesmith
- Kia Nesmith
- Travis Seymour

## end

## Additional material: For some choices, sure-thing option had lower expected value

- Win chance	Amount		vs.	Win chance	Amount
- 	100		10				1	1250
- 	100		10				5	250
- 	100		10				10	125
- 	100		10				20	62.5
- 	100		10				40	31.25
- 	100		10				60	20.83
- 	100		10				80	15.63
- 	100		10				90	13.89
- 	100		10				95	13.16
- 	100		10				99	12.63

## For some choices, the two risky options varied in expected value 

- Win chance	Amount		vs.	Win chance	Amount
- 	50		10				1	400
- 	50		10				5	80
- 	50		10				10	40
- 	50		10				20	20
- 	50		10				40	10
- 	50		10				60	6.67
- 	50		10				80	5
- 	50		10				90	4.44
- 	50		10				95	4.21
- 	50		10				99	4.04