Some Seniors Outperform Younger People in Making Decisions

A recent study at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina shows that some senior citizens are better at making decisions than younger people are.

Psychologists have long been aware that as a group, older people are less willing to take risks. Some studies also show that older people generally make less sound decisions. There was a presumption that the aging process itself caused seniors to be risk-adverse, which could have negative financial implications over the long term. However the most recent study, by Duke neurology and psychology professor Scott A. Huettel, shows that decision-making ability varies a great deal between seniors. The highest-functioning seniors actually outperformed younger people in decision-making trials.

In the study published in Psychology and Aging, Dr. Huettel had 54 older adults (66 to 76 years old) and 58 younger adults (18 to 35 years old) play games for money, designed to test the ability to tolerate risk and make financial decisions.

The researchers found that seniors with better cognitive abilities won more money by making better decisions. In fact, the seniors with the best cognitive abilities made more money than the younger adults. Seniors with better memory abilities who could process information quickly scored the best.

In general, Huettel says, older adults are better at complex reasoning. While some processed information more slowly than young people, there was a wide range of performance. Seniors with the best cognitive abilities outperformed younger people in every way, including speed of processing information.

On average, younger people processed information faster than older people. Dr. Gary Small of the Los Angeles Center on Aging suggests that information be structured so that seniors have more time to process it. For example, they should be given 30 or 60 days to decide on a new prescription medication plan, rather than 2 days. Generally speaking, reaction time, processing speed and short-term memory decline with age – but this is not true for every senior.

By Joni Holderman, [email protected], contributing reporter for Mental Health News.