Aging and decision making: How aging affects decisions under uncertainty

Arbeitspapier

In an aging society, it becomes more and more important to understand how aging affects decision making. Older adults have to face many situations that require consequential financial decisions. In the present study, we examined the effects of aging on decisions in two domains of uncertainty: risk and ambiguity. For this purpose, a group of young and older adults played a card game which was composed of risky and ambiguous conditions. In the risk condition, participants knew the probabilities to win or loose the game (i.e. full information), whereas in the ambiguous condition, these probabilities were unknown (thus, there was lack of information). When confronted with risky decisions, the behaviour of older and young adults (measured by the number of times participants chose a gamble instead of a sure amount of money) did not differ. In contrast, under ambiguity, there were significant age-effects in decision making: older people were less ambiguity-averse than young subjects. We conclude that there exist differences in uncertainty-processing between young and older adults, and discuss possible explanations of these differences.

Angaben zum Objekt

• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Series: Discussion Paper Series ; No. 508

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Wirtschaft ; Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-labor Market Discrimination ; Design of Experiments: Laboratory, Individual
• Thema: Age differences ; experiment ; risk and uncertainty ; Entscheidung unter Unsicherheit ; Risikoaversion ; Altersgruppe ; Test

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Geistige Schöpfung
• (wer): Sproten, Alec ; Diener, Carsten ; Fiebach, Christian ; Schwieren, Christiane
• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wer): University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics
• (wo): Heidelberg
• (wann): 2010

Weitere Informationen

• DOI: doi:10.11588/heidok.00011361
• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/127325
• URN: urn:nbn:de:bsz:16-opus-113615
• Letzte Aktualisierung: 10.03.2025, 11:47 MEZ