Recent research has suggested that young adults make the most optimal decisions when the problem is weighed at the unconscious level, or when they engage in little deliberation (Dijksterhuis, 2004). This is an intriguing finding with important implications for older adultsâ decision making given normative age-related declines in deliberative processing. In the current study, I investigated age differences in the benefits of unconscious relative to conscious thought. I also examined the extent to which these benefits interact with the processing demands of the decision task, and further if age-related benefits associated with unconscious processing might be specific to certain decision making tasks. For example, if the decision task requires selective attention to relevant material, rather than simple evaluation, conscious thought may be more beneficial than unconscious thought and aging may negatively affect performance. Using a procedure developed by Dijksterhuis, young and older adult participants (N = 125) engaged in unconscious or conscious thought processing before selecting a choice from information regarding apartments and banks. The information was presented as intuitive (i.e., optimal choice contained the most positive attributes) or deliberative (i.e., optimal choice based on a subset of information). The results of the study reveled that young adults performed well on the decision task when unconsciously processing intuitive information and consciously processing deliberative information. Older adults were more influenced by the type of information rather than thought processing, which lead them to perform better when they received intuitive information rather than deliberative information, regardless of thought condition. Additionally, both young and older adults displayed choice supportive memory, whereas neither age nor thought condition affected choice satisfaction.
Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NCSU/oai:NCSU:etd-08282008-154259 |
Date | 13 October 2008 |
Creators | Queen, Tara Licciardello |
Contributors | Jason Allaire, Shevaun Neupert, Thomas M. Hess |
Publisher | NCSU |
Source Sets | North Carolina State University |
Language | English |
Detected Language | English |
Type | text |
Format | application/pdf |
Source | http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/theses/available/etd-08282008-154259/ |
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