Metamemory and financial decision making in older adults without dementia.

Abstract

Objective: Metamemory refers to self-awareness of one's memory function, and the extent to which metamemory deficit impacts financial decision making is unknown. This study tested the hypothesis that metamemory deficit is associated with poor financial decision making among older adults without dementia. Method: Data came from 502 community-dwelling older adults participating in the Rush Memory and Aging Project. Metamemory deficit was determined empirically by contrasting subjective memory ratings with performance on objective memory tests. Larger discrepancy of self-rated memory scores from performance-based testing scores indicates greater deficit. Financial decision making was assessed using a performance-based measure. Multivariable regression analyses examined the association of metamemory deficit with financial decision making. Results: Participants had a mean age of 83 years and a mean education of 15 years. Approximately 75% were female. On average, participants answered two thirds of the financial decision making questions correctly. Female sex, older age, lower education, and lower financial literacy were correlated with poorer financial decision making. In an ordinal logistic regression model controlled for demographics and financial literacy, an 1SD increase in metamemory deficit reduced the odds of having better financial decision making by approximately 15%, OR: 0.844, 95% CI [0.719-0.991]. This association persisted after further controlling for family income, early life socioeconomic status, depressive symptoms and executive function. Conclusions: Metamemory deficit in older adults is a potential indicator of impaired financial decision making. Key PointsQuestion: What is the relationship between metamemory deficit and financial decision making in old age? Findings: Older adults free of dementia but with greater metamemory deficit performed more poorly on financial decision making. Importance: Many older people without overt cognitive impairment are actively engaged in their own financial matters, and metamemory deficit negatively impacts their financial decision making. Next Steps: To expand the investigation to people of color and explore the extent to which the result differs between race/ethnicity.

Mapping the knowledge domain of financial decision making: A scientometric and bibliometric study

“…The largest cluster (#0), labeled as financial decision, included 43 articles and had a silhouette value of 0.902, with more attention being focused on financial decision-making ability of groups of individuals with different cognitive impairments. The top five most cited articles are Tsai and Young (2010) , Willner et al (2010) , Sunderaraman et al (2019) , Bangma et al (2020) , Yu et al (2021) . Willner et al (2010) adopt a more realistic task of financial decision making to replicate and extend the previous results, in order to test whether participants with intellectual disabilities (ID) could “weigh-up information.” They observed that “weighing up” information was not evident for people with ID.…”

“…The current findings indicated that negative emotions might not always alleviate the escalation of commitment. Yu et al (2021) tested whether metamemory deficit could lead normal older people to make poor financial decisions. They found that metamemory deficit impaired older adults’ FDM.…”

“…However, studies suggest that different cognitive impairments contribute to some groups’ poor performance in financial related decision making. Individuals with intellectual disabilities ( Willner et al, 2010 ), metamemory deficit ( Yu et al, 2021 ), acquired brain injury ( Sunderaraman et al, 2019 ), and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ( Bangma et al, 2020 ) impair their financial capacity.…”

“…Additionally, angry individuals recognized lower risk in their initial financial decisions than the fearful individuals, which resulted in the increasing tendency of escalating commitment. The current findings indicated that negative emotions might not always alleviate the escalation of commitment Yu et al (2021). tested whether metamemory deficit could lead normal older people to make poor financial decisions.…”

The Neural Correlates of Metacognitive Awareness

“…Importantly, self-awareness has been shown to play a major role in functional decline in healthy aging . It has been observed that healthy older adults are less aware of their mistakes , and that reduced metacognitive abilities may affect daily activities such as engagement in occupational therapy (Mihaljcic et al, 2017), financial decision making (Yu et al, 2022), and medication management (Cooper et al, 2005).…”