Dorien Bangma

FDM AND NORMAL AGING | 51 decision-making styles in the context of FDM. Previous research on more general decision- making styles indicated that the use of intuitive and avoidant styles decreases with advancing age (Loo, 2000). The results of the present study, however, suggest that this does not apply to decisions in a financial situation. Also no significant effects of age were found for deliberative and intuitive FDM. It was expected that older adults would become better in making intuitive decisions since they rely more on the affective processes (Peters et al., 2007). However, no evidence for this expectation was found. Since a recently published meta-analysis including 61 studies concluded that there is no evidence for previous suggestions that intuitive decisions in complex situations lead to better decisions than deliberative decisions (Nieuwenstein et al., 2015), intuitive and deliberative decision-making were not directly compared in the present study. With increasing age, the tendency to buy on impulse seems to decrease. Particularly the affective component of impulsive buying behavior appears to be sensitive to the effects of normal aging. Both the internal and external validation analyses support these findings. The results suggest that with advancing age individuals are less prone to feelings of temptation or immediate satisfaction when buying something, which is consistent with improved affective processes (Li et al., 2004; Mikels et al., 2013; Peters et al., 2007) and a better impulse control or emotion-regulation that accompanies aging (Orgeta, 2009). Related to the improved impulse control with advancing age, it was found in sample 1 that with advancing age individuals are less sensitive to immediate rewards (TD); these results could, however, not be confirmed in sample 2. The results of previous studies on the effect of aging on TD are also mixed, with some studies demonstrating an increased sensitivity to TD with advancing age, while others show no effects of normal aging on TD (e.g., Green et al., 1994, 1996; Löckenhoff et al., 2011; Read & Read, 2004; Whelan & McHugh, 2009). It has been hypothesized that income might have an effect on TD (Green et al., 1996) and mediate the age effects. Also other financial resources, such as financial reserves, might be of influence on the association between normal aging and TD. Inconsistent findings between sample 1 and 2 were also found for emotional decision- making measured with the IGT. An age-related decline was found in sample 1 for emotional decision-making. This was particularly evident for the last parts (i.e., the last forty trials) of the task, which are suggested to assess risky decision-making (Brand et al., 2006). This age effect is in accordance with previous research (Beitz et al., 2014; Denburg et al., 2005; Fein et al., 2007). However, the internal validation analyses only partly supported these findings and results could not be replicated by the external validation analysis, i.e., no age effects on the IGT were found in sample 2. A possible explanation for these discrepant findings might be that the two samples included in the present study differed with regard to number of years of education. Indeed, several studies showed that performance on the IGT might be affected by level of education (Davis et al., 2008; Fry et al., 2009). Nevertheless, the present study did find strong evidence that the ability to apply rules during an FDM situation (i.e., CDR) decreases with advancing age. This result indicates that when (financial) decisions need to be made based on specific preferences or rules, older adults have more difficulties with applying these preferences or rules than younger individuals. Both