• HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
Friday, August 12, 2022
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
  • HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News Health

NUS study: Older adults care about strangers' welfare in financial decision-making

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
December 28, 2018
in Health
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

Older adults make the same financial decisions for themselves and others, while young adults take more risks when making financial decisions for others

IMAGE

Credit: National University of Singapore


A recent study by researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) found that when it comes to making financial decisions under risk, older adults will regard the financial outcomes of others’ as their own and make choices that they would have selected for themselves.

“Citizens in approximately one third of the countries around the world rely heavily on decisions made by older adults who may be government, business or community leaders. It is important to not only understand how these elderly people make decisions for themselves, but also how they make decisions on behalf of others, as their decisions can lead to significant gains or losses,” said team leader Assistant Professor Yu Rongjun, who is from the Department of Psychology at the NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.

The results of this study were reported in the journal Psychology and Aging in September 2018.

Closing the knowledge gap in financial decision-making

People often need to make financial choices for themselves, and sometimes, on behalf of others. Studies have shown that younger adults take more risks when making financial decisions for others. However, there is a lack of understanding about the decision-making behaviour of the elderly.

To address this knowledge gap, Asst Prof Yu and his team conducted studies to compare how younger adults and older adults make financial decisions, both for themselves and for others.

The NUS study was conducted from 2016 and 2017, and involved 191 Singaporean participants. Among them, 93 were older adults with an average age of 70, while 98 were young adults averaging 23 years old.

The participants were asked to complete a series of computerised decision-making tests in which they were assessed based on the choices they made under uncertainties. The research team used computational modelling to analyse two aspects of the participants’ financial decision-making: loss aversion, which is a tendency to weight potential losses more strongly than potential gains; risk-aversion asymmetry, which looks at the tendency to be risk-averse for potential gains and risk-seeking for potential losses.

Financial decisions vary with age

The results show that when younger adults are making financial decisions on behalf of others, they take more risks even when the decisions put the person they are acting for at a disadvantage. For the seniors, they make similar choices for themselves and when they act for others. Hence, the findings suggest that older adults care more about strangers’ welfare.

“Our results demonstrate that decision-makers of different age groups have different motivational goals. The young adults may treat the finances of others’ differently from their own, perhaps regarding them as being less important. On the other hand, the older generation may care more about social harmony and emotional experience, and have less emphasis on material gains,” explained Asst Prof Yu.

He further elaborated, “Although we did not manipulate decision-making power and participants simply made choices for strangers in our study, we speculate that similar age-dependent decision-making patterns may also apply to real-life workplace. For instance, a young boss may choose one insurance plan for his employees and another plan for himself. The plan that he picks for others may be more risky and potentially disadvantageous compared to the plan he chooses for himself. On the other hand, an older boss is likely to select the same plan for his staff and himself. The findings of this study resonate with our earlier research which showed older adults are more generous towards strangers.”

To deepen their understanding on the financial decision-making process of people from different age groups, Asst Prof Yu and his team will be conducting neuroimaging studies to examine the underlying neural basis of their observations.

###

Media Contact
Carolyn Fong
[email protected]
65-651-65399

Original Source

https://news.nus.edu.sg/press-releases/welfare-in-financial-decision-making

Related Journal Article

http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pag0000284

Tags: AgingDecision-making/Problem SolvingManagement Science/Operations ResearchOccupation/RetirementPersonalPersonal BusinessSocial/Behavioral ScienceSocioeconomics
Share12Tweet7Share2ShareShareShare1

Related Posts

Jeri Francoeur

Francoeur to lead Patient Advocacy Advisory Board for Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging

August 12, 2022
Scheme figure of MOPCS in this study

When CRISPR meets optical sensors – a new born of a nucleic acid sensing platform: MOPCS

August 12, 2022

Reframe the pain: Reducing needle anxiety in children

August 11, 2022

UTIA Professor Selected as a 2022 American Phytopathological Society Fellow

August 11, 2022
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • Picture of the horse specimen.

    Ancient DNA clarifies the early history of American colonial horses

    56 shares
    Share 22 Tweet 14
  • Fatigue, headache among top lingering symptoms months after COVID

    40 shares
    Share 16 Tweet 10
  • Ill-fated ‘Into the Wild’ adventurer was victim of unfortunate timing, Oregon State study suggests

    39 shares
    Share 16 Tweet 10
  • Skin: An additional tool for the versatile elephant trunk

    38 shares
    Share 15 Tweet 10

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Tags

Zoology/Veterinary ScienceVirologyUniversity of WashingtonVirusUrbanizationUrogenital SystemWeaponryVehiclesWeather/StormsVaccineVaccinesViolence/Criminals

Recent Posts

  • UTA researcher explores integration and power electronic regulation of batteries for Navy
  • Bug eyes and bat sonar: UCLA bioengineers turn to animal kingdom for creation of bionic super 3D cameras
  • Overcoming a major manufacturing constraint
  • Snyder Institute researchers discover new approach to healing skin infections and wounds
  • Contact Us

© 2019 Bioengineer.org - Biotechnology news by Science Magazine - Scienmag.

No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

© 2019 Bioengineer.org - Biotechnology news by Science Magazine - Scienmag.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In