Effect of Age on Susceptibility to Attraction Effect in Sequential Risky Decision-Making

Kościelniak, Maciej; Rydzewska, Klara; Gąsiorowska, Agata; Sędek, Grzegorz

Effect of Age on Susceptibility to Attraction Effect in Sequential Risky Decision-Making

StatusPost-Print

Dublin Core metadata

Authors

Kościelniak, Maciej

Rydzewska, Klara

Gąsiorowska, Agata

Sędek, Grzegorz

Date

2025-08

Journal title

Ageing & Society

Issue

8

Volume

45

Pages

1655-1682

ISSN

0144-686X

Weblink

cambridge.org/core/journals/ageing-and-society

Access date

2024-09-13

Abstract EN

Our study aims to contribute to the existing body of research on age-related changes in decision-making by investigating susceptibility to the attraction effect across adulthood. Prior studies have produced inconsistent conclusions regarding the decision-making abilities of older individuals with some portraying them as easily manipulated and risk-averse, while others suggest the opposite. To address this issue, we conducted two experiments using a novel paradigm of the roulette task: (1) in an online environment with 357 participants and (2) in a laboratory setting with 173 participants. The results were consistent and demonstrated the robustness of the attraction effect. However, no age differences in susceptibility to the attraction effect as a common decision bias were found. As predicted, older adults were more likely to commit simple decision-making mistakes, especially in the preliminary trials, and which could have serious financial or societal consequences. Additionally, older adults exhibited more risk-seeking behaviours. Furthermore, we observed that the dynamics of decision competence (as indicated by a decrease in the selection of erroneous decoy options and an increase in decision fluency) were similar for both younger and older adults, suggesting the preservation of the ability to optimise decision-making while becoming familiar with new tasks. These findings provide insight into the cognitive functioning of older adults and indicate that decision-making abilities in late adulthood may be more complex than commonly assumed.