Control Preference Persists With Age

The opportunity to exert control in one's environment is desirable, and individuals are willing to seek out control, even at a financial cost. Additionally, control-related activation of reward regions in the brain and the positive affect associated with the opportunity to exert control suggest...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychology and aging 2022-11, Vol.37 (7), p.843-847
Main Authors: Chantland, Eric C. M., Wang, Kainan S., Delgado, Mauricio R., Ravizza, Susan M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Age Differences
Aged
Aging
Aging - physiology
Brain - physiology
Female
Guessing
Human
Humans
Male
Monetary Rewards
Older people
Perceived Control
Positive emotions
Preferences
Preferred Rewards
Reward
Rewards
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Summary:The opportunity to exert control in one's environment is desirable, and individuals are willing to seek out control, even at a financial cost. Additionally, control-related activation of reward regions in the brain and the positive affect associated with the opportunity to exert control suggest that control is rewarding. The present study explores whether there are age-related differences in the preference for control. Older and younger adults chose whether to maintain control and play a guessing game themselves or to cede this control to the computer. Maintaining and ceding control were associated with different amounts of monetary reward that could be banked upon a successful guess. This required participants to weigh the value associated with control compared to monetary rewards. We found that older adults preferred control and traded monetary reward for control, similar to younger adults. The results suggest that the preference for exerting control may be preserved across age. Public Significance Statement Humans value being in control of their lives, but it is unclear how aging might influence this preference for control. We found that older and younger adults did not differ in their preference for control, indicating that it is relatively unaffected by healthy aging.
ISSN:0882-7974
1939-1498
DOI:10.1037/pag0000708