The Effects of Age, Priming, and Working Memory on Decision-Making

In the current study, we examined the effects of priming and personality on risky decision-making while playing the Game of Dice Task (GDT). In the GDT, participants decide how risky they wish to be on each trial. In this particular study prior to playing the GDT, participants were randomly assigned to one of three priming conditions: Risk-Aversive, Risk-Seeking, or Control. In the Risk-Seeking condition, a fictional character benefitted from risky behavior while in the Risk-Aversive condition, a fictional character benefitted from exercising caution. Although not explicitly stated in the instructions, participants need to make “safe” rather than risky choices to optimize performance on the GDT. Participants were also given Daneman and Carpenter’s assessment of working memory task. Interestingly, although older adults self-reported being more cautious than younger adults on the Domain Specific Risk Attitude scale (DOSPERT), older adults made riskier decisions than younger adults on the GDT. However, after controlling for working memory, the age differences on the GDT became insignificant, indicating that working memory mediated the relation between age and risky decisions on the GDT.