Centre for Policy on Ageing



Choice supportive source monitoring — do our decisions seem better to us as we age?
Author(s)	Mara Mather, Marcia K Johnson
Journal title	Psychology and Aging, vol 15, no 4, December 2000
Pages	pp 596-606
Keywords	Reasoning ; Mental clarity ; Mental ageing ; Age groups [elderly] ; Young adults [20-25] ; Comparison.
Annotation	Participants were given several 2-option choices and then asked to review how they felt about their decisions, to review the details of their decisions, or to do an unrelated task. When later asked to attribute features in the previous options, in each condition older adults (64-83 years) attributed significantly more positive and fewer negative features to their chosen options than to foregone options. Younger adults' (18-22 years) attributions were as choice-supportive as those of older adults in the affective review condition, but less so in the other conditions. The age difference was present even when older and younger adults were equated for source identification and recognition accuracy. The study suggests that as people age, their tendency to distort memory in favour of the options they chose increases. It also suggests that affectively reviewing choices increases younger adults tendency towards choice-supportive memory. (RH).
Accession Number	CPA-010312202 A
Classmark	DC: DF: D6: BB: SD6: 48
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...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.