Serotonergic genotypes, neuroticism, and financial choices

Life financial outcomes carry a significant heritable component, but the mechanisms by which genes influence financial choices remain unclear. Focusing on a polymorphism in the promoter region of the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR), we found that individuals possessing the short allele of this gene invested less in equities, were less engaged in actively making investment decisions, and had fewer credit lines. Short allele carriers also showed higher levels of the personality trait neuroticism, despite not differing from others with respect to cognitive skills, education, or wealth. Mediation analysis suggested that the presence of the 5-HTTLPR short allele decreased real life measures of financial risk taking through its influence on neuroticism. These findings show that 5-HTTLPR short allele carriers avoid risky and complex financial choices due to negative emotional reactions, and have implications for understanding and managing individual differences in financial choice.

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 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.

Age Differences in Striatal Delay Sensitivity during Intertemporal Choice in Healthy Adults

Intertemporal choices are a ubiquitous class of decisions that involve selecting between outcomes available at different times in the future. We investigated the neural systems supporting intertemporal decisions in healthy younger and older adults. Using functional neuroimaging, we find that aging is associated with a shift in the brain areas that respond to delayed rewards. Although we replicate findings that brain regions associated with the mesolimbic dopamine system respond preferentially to immediate rewards, we find a separate region in the ventral striatum with very modest time dependence in older adults. Activation in this striatal region was relatively insensitive to delay in older but not younger adults. Since the dopamine system is believed to support associative learning about future rewards over time, our observed transfer of function may be due to greater experience with delayed rewards as people age. Identifying differences in the neural systems underlying these decisions may contribute to a more comprehensive model of age-related change in intertemporal choice.

Expected value information improves financial risk taking across the adult life span

When making decisions, individuals must often compensate for cognitive limitations, particularly in the face of advanced age. Recent findings suggest that age-related variability in striatal activity may increase financial risk-taking mistakes in older adults. In two studies, we sought to further characterize neural contributions to optimal financial risk taking and to determine whether decision aids could improve financial risk taking. In Study 1, neuroimaging analyses revealed that individuals whose mesolimbic activation correlated with the expected value estimates of a rational actor made more optimal financial decisions. In Study 2, presentation of expected value information improved decision making in both younger and older adults, but the addition of a distracting secondary task had little impact on decision quality. Remarkably, provision of expected value information improved the performance of older adults to match that of younger adults at baseline. These findings are consistent with the notion that mesolimbic circuits play a critical role in optimal choice, and imply that providing simplified information about expected value may improve financial risk taking across the adult life span.

Emotional experience improves with age: evidence based on over 10 years of experience sampling

Recent evidence suggests that emotional well-being improves from early adulthood to old age. This study used experience-sampling to examine the developmental course of emotional experience in a representative sample of adults spanning early to very late adulthood. Participants (N = 184, Wave 1; N = 191, Wave 2; N = 178, Wave 3) reported their emotional states at five randomly selected times each day for a one week period. Using a measurement burst design, the one-week sampling procedure was repeated five and then ten years later. Cross-sectional and growth curve analyses indicate that aging is associated with more positive overall emotional well-being, with greater emotional stability and with more complexity (as evidenced by greater co-occurrence of positive and negative emotions). These findings remained robust after accounting for other variables that may be related to emotional experience (personality, verbal fluency, physical health, and demographic variables). Finally, emotional experience predicted mortality; controlling for age, sex, and ethnicity, individuals who experienced relatively more positive than negative emotions in everyday life were more likely to have survived over a 13 year period. Findings are discussed in the theoretical context of socioemotional selectivity theory.

Replicating the positivity effect in picture memory in Koreans: evidence for cross-cultural generalizability

Older adults' relatively better memory for positive over negative material (positivity effect) has been widely observed in Western samples. This study examined whether a relative preference for positive over negative material is also observed in older Koreans. Younger and older Korean participants viewed images from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS), were tested for recall and recognition of the images, and rated the images for valence. Cultural differences in the valence ratings of images emerged. Once considered, the relative preference for positive over negative material in memory observed in older Koreans was indistinguishable from that observed previously in older Americans.

Selective attention to emotion in the aging brain

A growing body of research suggests that the ability to regulate emotion remains stable or improves across the adult life span. Socioemotional selectivity theory maintains that this pattern of findings reflects the prioritization of emotional goals. Given that goal-directed behavior requires attentional control, the present study was designed to investigate age differences in selective attention to emotional lexical stimuli under conditions of emotional interference. Both neural and behavioral measures were obtained during an experiment in which participants completed a flanker task that required them to make categorical judgments about emotional and nonemotional stimuli. Older adults showed interference in both the behavioral and neural measures on control trials but not on emotion trials. Although older adults typically show relatively high levels of interference and reduced cognitive control during nonemotional tasks, they appear to be able to successfully reduce interference during emotional tasks.

Don't stop thinking about tomorrow: Individual differences in future self-continuity account for saving

Some people find it more difficult to delay rewards than others. In three experiments, we tested a "future self-continuity" hypothesis that individual differences in the perception of one's present self as continuous with a future self would be associated with measures of saving in the laboratory and everyday life. Higher future self-continuity (assessed by a novel index) predicted reduced discounting of future rewards in a laboratory task, more matches in adjectival descriptions of present and future selves, and greater lifetime accumulation of financial assets (even after controlling for age and education). In addition to demonstrating the reliability and validity of the future self-continuity index, these findings are consistent with the notion that increased future self-continuity might promote saving for the future.

Group comparisons: imaging the aging brain

With the recent growth of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), scientists across a range of disciplines are comparing neural activity between groups of interest, such as healthy controls and clinical patients, children and young adults and younger and older adults. In this edition of Tools of the Trade, we will discuss why great caution must be taken when making group comparisons in studies using fMRI. Although many methodological contributions have been made in recent years, the suggestions for overcoming common issues are too often overlooked. This review focuses primarily on neuroimaging studies of healthy aging, but many of the issues raised apply to other group designs as well.

Individual differences in insular sensitivity during loss anticipation predict avoidance learning

The anterior insula has been implicated in both the experience and the anticipation of negative outcomes. Although individual differences in insular sensitivity have been associated with self-report measures of chronic anxiety, previous research has not examined whether individual differences in insular sensitivity predict learning to avoid aversive stimuli. In the present study, insular sensitivity was assessed as participants anticipated monetary losses while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. We found that insular responsiveness to anticipated losses predicted participants' ability to learn to avoid losses (but not to approach gains) in a behavioral test several months later. These findings suggest that in addition to correlating with self-reported anxiety, heightened insular sensitivity may promote learning to avoid loss.

Anticipation of monetary gain but not loss in healthy older adults

Although global declines in structure have been documented in the aging human brain, little is known about the functional integrity of the striatum and prefrontal cortex in older adults during incentive processing. We used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to determine whether younger and older adults differed in both self-reported and neural responsiveness to anticipated monetary gains and losses. The present study provides evidence for intact striatal and insular activation during gain anticipation with age, but shows a relative reduction in activation during loss anticipation. These findings suggest that there is an asymmetry in the processing of gains and losses in older adults that may have implications for decision-making.