title: Aging and everyday judgments: the impact of motivational and processing resource factors.
abstract: It has been hypothesized that reductions in cognitive resources might result in older adults engaging in less systematic processing than young adults when making everyday judgments. In 2 experiments, the authors tested individuals aged from 24 to 89 years to examine the degree to which task-related information associated with more superficial versus complex processing differentially influenced performance. They also examined the hypothesis that motivational factors would moderate age differences in processing complexity. In both studies, there were no age differences in the use of simple versus complex processing. Increasing age was, however, associated with increasing selectivity in cognitive resource engagement.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-7650, USA. thomas_hess@ncsu.edu
authors.forename: Thomas M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Hess
authors.forename: Christina M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Leclerc
authors.forename: Elizabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Swaim
authors.forename: Sarah R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Weatherbee
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D001288:Attention; D003210:Concept Formation; D003415:Crime / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006167:Guilt; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009042:Motivation; D011340:Problem Solving; D055815:Young Adult