title: Task complexity and older adults' decision-making competence.
abstract: This article reports progress in an ongoing research program examining older adults' decision-making competence (DMC). Using a theoretical framework that emphasizes the person-task fit in assessing DMC, the authors report the results of a study comparing older versus younger adults' decision performance on simple and complex tasks about health, finance, and nutrition. The authors hypothesized and found that increasing age and task complexity were related to greater comprehension errors and inconsistency in decision making. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that a large amount of age-related variance in performance on the decision tasks could be accounted for by exogenous social variables, health measures, basic cognitive skills, and attitudinal measures. The discussion emphasizes several directions for future research, including the need to validate the meaning of performance on these tasks for real-life decision processes.
authors.affiliation: Kaiser Permanente, Honolulu, HI 96817, USA. melissa.l.finucane@kp.org
authors.forename: Melissa L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Finucane
authors.forename: C K
authors.initials: CK
authors.lastname: Mertz
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Slovic
authors.forename: Elizabeth Scholze
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Schmidt
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001294:Attitude to Health; D003071:Cognition; D003657:Decision Making; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009747:Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors