Decision-making strategies and performance among seniors

Tibor Besedes, Cary Deck (), Sudipta Sarangi and Mikhael Shor

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2012, vol. 81, issue 2, 524-533

Abstract: Using paper and pencil experiments administered in senior centers, we examine decision-making performance in multi-attribute decision problems. We differentiate the effects of declining cognitive performance and changing cognitive process on decision-making performance of seniors as they age. We find a significant decline in performance with age due to reduced reliance on common heuristics and increased decision-making randomness among our oldest subjects. However, we find that increasing the number of options in a decision problem increases the number of heuristics brought to the task. This challenges the choice overload view that people give up when confronted with too much choice.

Keywords: Experiments; Decision making; Choice overload; Age effects; Heuristics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D03 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (32)

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Working Paper: Decision-making Strategies and Performance among Seniors (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:81:y:2012:i:2:p:524-533

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2011.07.016

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