Objectives Leaders in many organizations are older adults who routinely make decisions in social bargaining situations. However, we know little about the age-related differences in strategic decision making. Methods In the current study (n = 182), using a modified Prisoner’s Dilemma game (PDG), we examined two important intrinsic motivations for non-cooperation: fear of betrayal and greedy desire to exploit other people among young and older Chinese Singaporeans. Results Results showed that compared with young adults, older adults demonstrated an intact greed motive but a diminished fear motive in the PDG. Discussion Our findings suggest a diminished sensitivity to social threat or potential losses due to betrayal in older adults’ social decision making. Older adults may have a declined ability to assess social threats even though they retain the motivation to gain an exploitive advantage.

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Many older adults hold powerful positions in governments and corporate boards throughout the world. Accordingly, older adults often have to make important financial decisions on behalf of others under risk. Although it is common to observe younger adults taking more risks when making financial decisions for others, it is unclear if older adults exhibit the same self-other discrepancies. Here, we conducted 2 studies (88 and 124 participants, respectively) to examine self-other discrepancies in financial decision making under risk in older adults. We focused on 3 aspects of financial decision making: loss aversion (a tendency to weight potential losses more strongly than potential gains), risk-aversion asymmetry (a tendency to be risk-averse for potential gains and risk-seeking for potential losses), and risk preferences separately in gain and loss domains. Using computational modeling and behavioral economics tasks, we found weaker self-other discrepancies in older adults (compared with younger adults) across all 3 aspects. We also replicated the age differences in self-other discrepancies in loss aversion across 2 largely nonoverlapping cohorts. Thus, it appears that when making financial decisions on behalf of others, older adults, relative to younger adults, have a stronger disposition to regard others' financial outcomes as important as their own. (PsycINFO Database Record

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