Aging-Related Selectivity and Susceptibility to Irrelevant Affective Information in the Construction of Attitudes

Hess, Thomas M.; Germain, Cassandra M.; Rosenberg, Daniel C.; Leclerc, Christina M.; Hodges, Elizabeth A.

doi:10.1080/13825580590925170

Cited by 37 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…For example, if the decision being faced is of low relevance or meaningfulness to the individual, it makes sense to conserve cognitive resources and to be selective about where effort is spent. 28 Hess, Germain, Rosenberg, Leclerc, and Hodges 29 showed how older, but not younger, adults' attitudes toward proposed legislation were influenced by irrelevant affective information (the likeability of the lawmaker proposing the legislation) when the personal relevance of the legislation was low. In contrast, the irrelevant affective information did not influence older or younger adults' attitudes when the legislation was rated high in personal relevance.…”

Section: Feelings As Informationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emotion, affect, and risk communication with older adults: challenges and opportunities

Finucane

2008

Journal of Risk Research

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Recent research suggests that emotion, affect, and cognition play important roles in risk perception and that their roles in judgment and decision-making processes may change over the lifespan. This paper discusses how emotion and affect might help or hinder risk communication with older adults. Currently, there are few guidelines for developing effective risk messages for the world's aging population, despite the array of complex risk decisions that come with increasing age and the importance of maintaining good decision making in later life. Age-related declines in cognitive abilities such as memory and processing speed, increased reliance on automatic processes, and adaptive motivational shifts toward focusing more on affective (especially positive) information mean that older and younger adults may respond differently to risk messages. Implications for specific risk information formats (probabilities, frequencies, visual displays, and narratives) are discussed and directions for future research are highlighted.

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Section: Feelings As Informationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emotion, affect, and risk communication with older adults: challenges and opportunities

Finucane

2008

Journal of Risk Research

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“…First, older adults selectively use their deliberative capacity (Hess et al, 2005). With greater relevance and engagement in the task, older adults allocate more cognitive resources and monitor and control the impact of less relevant information.…”

Section: Decision Makingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Decision making and brand choice by older consumers

et al. 2008

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Older adults constitute a rapidly growing demographic segment, but stereotypes persist about their consumer behavior. Thus, a more considered understanding of age-associated changes in decision making and choices is required. Our underlying theoretical model suggests that ageassociated changes in cognition, affect, and goals interact to differentiate older consumers' decision-making processes, brand choices, and habits from those of younger adults. We first review literature on stereotypes about the elderly and then turn to an analysis of age differences in the inputs (cognition, affect, and goals) and outputs (decisions, brand choices, and habits) of the choice process.Keywords: older consumers, decision making, choice 2 Older consumers represent an increasingly large and financially powerful part of the population worldwide. We propose that age-associated changes in cognition, affect, and goals intermingle to influence older consumers' decision-making processes and choices and thus distinguish these processes as different from those used by younger adults. This review attempts to achieve a more considered understanding of age differences in the inputs (cognition, affect, and goals) and outputs (decisions, brand choices, and habits) of choice processes. For example, extant literature focuses largely on the ways in which one input (e.g., memory) affects a single output (e.g., brand choice). We organize the review around stereotypes, inputs, outputs, and further research, but we expressly highlight the complex interrelationships among these concepts. StereotypesSection Author: Michael I. Norton People tend to possess stereotypical views of the elderly, regarding them as kindly, warm, and friendly but simultaneously incompetent, ineffective, and helpless (Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, and Xu, 2002)-beliefs that are evident across cultures (Cuddy, Norton, and Fiske, 2005). Marketers take a similar view of the elderly, imagining them as a homogenous group that differs qualitatively from younger consumers in both abilities and preferences. Just as media stereotypically portray the elderly (Vasil and Wass, 1993), marketers tend to portray them similarly in advertisements (McConatha, Schnell, and McKenna, 1999). Marketing scholars and practitioners routinely group the elderly into one catch-all category of persons 65 years of age and older, which may include as much as a 40-year span because of increases in longevity (i.e., grouping consumers aged 65 years with those older than 100 years). Such a broad grouping for a different cohort, say from 10 to 50 years of age, would seem ridiculous and demonstrates the 2 heterogeneity in preferences and needs within such a wide grouping. Even if fewer preference changes occur in later life, the heterogeneity in preferences, needs, and wants among consumers aged 65 to 100 years are likely considerable.Furthermore, despite the substantial overlap in abilities, preferences, and goals between older and younger consumers, substantial differences also mark them. For example, the elder...

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“…Despite the fact that older adults are able to compensate for working memory deficits in familiar domains, older adults appear to lack the cognitive resources (Hess, Germain, Rosenber, Leclerc and Hodges, 2005) to compensate for age-related changes in cognitive resources such as working memory in unfamiliar domains. In the current study, this age-related decline in cognitive resources resulted in older adults' being unable to make optimal decisions in unfamiliar domains.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Hess, Germain, Rosenber, Leclerc and Hodges, (2005) argue that older adults might allocate less resources to decision making tasks because of declines in working memory. Due to the decline in working memory, elaborative processing is more taxing for older adults than for younger adults.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Decision-making quality of younger and older adults in familiar and unfamiliar domains

Wayde

Black

Gilpin

2016

Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition

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The older adult population of the United States is expected to increase substantially in the next twenty years. Working memory, one of the cognitive resources crucial for decision making, declines with age. The decline in working memory might have a negative effect on the quality of purchasing decisions that older adults make.However, older adults have greater experience than younger adults and may be able to use past knowledge or schemas to assist them in decision making. By using a schema in familiar situations, older adults can conserve cognitive resources and thereby make high quality decisions.In this study, age-related changes in decision-making were examined as a function of age and familiarity. Participants consisted of 55 younger adults and 46 older adults. Participants were presented with purchasing scenarios and asked to choose between two products described in the scenario. In each instance, inferencing was required to select the optimal option from the two choices. Domain knowledge about the to-be-purchased product was also manipulated.Results support the hypothesis that younger adults generally make good quality decisions regardless of the domain while older adults make better quality decisions in the familiar domain as opposed to the unfamiliar domain.Current findings suggest that although adult decision making ability is compromised with age, older adults are able to use existing domain knowledge of a specific area to compensate for the lack of cognitive resources in order to make high quality decisions.

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Aging-Related Selectivity and Susceptibility to Irrelevant Affective Information in the Construction of Attitudes

Cited by 37 publications

References 27 publications

Emotion, affect, and risk communication with older adults: challenges and opportunities

Emotion, affect, and risk communication with older adults: challenges and opportunities

Decision making and brand choice by older consumers

Decision-making quality of younger and older adults in familiar and unfamiliar domains

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