“…We speculate that different mechanisms may explain why older adults are less inclined than younger adults to engage in maximizing, including alternative search (Peters & Bruine de Bruin, 2012; Strough, Parker, & Bruine de Bruin, 2015). First, older adults face cognitive declines that make it harder to correctly implement complex decision rules like maximizing (Bruine de Bruin, Parker, & Fischhoff, 2012; Del Missier, Mäntylä, Hansson, Bruine de Bruin, & Parker, 2013), which contributes to their preferences for smaller choice sets (Liu, Wood,& Hanoch, 2015). Second, the finding that older adults are less likely than younger adults to engage in excessive alternative search may reflect their increased motivation to optimize positive affective experiences (Carstensen, 1992), and their reduced willingness to spend effort on difficult tasks they no longer enjoy (Bruine de Bruin, McNair, Taylor, Summers, & Strough, 2015; Strough, Bruine de Bruin, & Peters, 2015).…”