Age differences in risky choice: a meta-analysis

Does risk taking change as a function of age? We conducted a systematic literature search and found 29 comparisons between younger and older adults on behavioral tasks thought to measure risk taking (N= 4,093). The reports relied on various tasks differing in several respects, such as the amount of...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 2011-10, Vol.1235 (1), p.18-29
Main Authors: Mata, Rui, Josef, Anika K., Samanez-Larkin, Gregory R., Hertwig, Ralph
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Adults
Age
Age Factors
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
aging
Aging - physiology
Behavior
Choice Behavior - physiology
Decision Making - physiology
Decisions
decisions from description
decisions from experience
Female
Framing
Gain
Humans
Learning
Male
meta-analysis
Middle Aged
Old people
Older people
Posture
Risk
Risk-Taking
Tasks
Young Adult
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Does risk taking change as a function of age? We conducted a systematic literature search and found 29 comparisons between younger and older adults on behavioral tasks thought to measure risk taking (N= 4,093). The reports relied on various tasks differing in several respects, such as the amount of learning required or the choice framing (gains vs. losses). The results suggest that age‐related differences vary considerably as a function of task characteristics, in particular the learning requirements of the task. In decisions from experience, age‐related differences in risk taking were a function of decreased learning performance: older adults were more risk seeking compared to younger adults when learning led to risk‐avoidant behavior, but were more risk averse when learning led to risk‐seeking behavior. In decisions from description, younger adults and older adults showed similar risk‐taking behavior for the majority of the tasks, and there were no clear age‐related differences as a function of gain/loss framing. We discuss limitations and strengths of past research and provide suggestions for future work on age‐related differences in risk taking.
ISSN:0077-8923
1749-6632
DOI:10.1111/j.1749-6632.2011.06200.x