The Role of Emotional vs. Cognitive Intelligence in Economic Decision-Making Amongst Older Adults

Abstract

The links between emotions, bio-regulatory processes, and economic decision-making are well-established in the context of age-related changes in fluid, real-time, decision competency. The objective of the research reported here is to assess the relative contributions, interactions, and impacts of affective and cognitive intelligence in economic, value-based decision-making amongst older adults. Additionally, we explored this decision-making competency in the context of the neurobiology of aging by examining the neuroanatomical correlates of intelligence and decision-making in an aging cohort. Thirty-nine, healthy, community dwelling older adults were administered the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), an ecologically valid laboratory measure of complex, economic decision-making; along with standardized, performance-based measures of cognitive and emotional intelligence (EI). A smaller subset of this group underwent structural brain scans from which thicknesses of the frontal, parietal, temporal, occipital, cingulate cortices and their subsections , were computed. Fluid (online processing) aspects of Perceptual Reasoning cognitive intelligence predicted superior choices on the IGT. However, older adults with higher overall emotional intelligence (EI) and higher Experiential EI area/sub-scores learned faster to make better choices on the IGT, even after controlling for cognitive intelligence and its area scores. Thickness of the left rostral anterior cingulate (associated with fluid affective, processing) mediated the relationship between age and Experiential EI. Thickness of the right transverse temporal gyrus moderated the rate of learning on the IGT. In conclusion, our data suggest that fluid processing, which involves "online," bottom-up, cognitive processing, predicts value-based decision-making amongst older adults, while crystallized intelligence, which relies on "offline" previously acquired knowledge, does not. However, only emotional intelligence, especially its fluid "online" aspects of affective processing predicts the rate of learning in situations of complex choice, especially when there is a paucity of cues/information available to guide decision-making. Age-related effects on these cognitive, affective and decision mechanisms may have neuroanatomical correlates, especially in regions that form a subset of the human mirror-neuron and mentalizing Ramchandran et al. EIaging systems. While superior decision-making may be stereotypically associated with "smarter people" (i.e., higher cognitive intelligence), our data indicate that emotional intelligence has a significant role to play in the economic decisions of older adults.

Patients on the psychosis spectrum employ an alternate brain network to engage in complex decision-making

“…While this region is a primary sensory cortex, it has bi-directional connections with the insula, primary and association sensory cortices, and perhaps serves as an integrated hub of somatic marker activity that informs CDM. Recent structural imaging research has suggested that the cortical thickness of the auditory cortex predicts IGT score, especially learning across blocks from start to finish in the task [41]. This research [41], tapped older adults who may be impaired in CDM, as would psychiatric patients, suggesting that the auditory cortex hub of somatic marker information may play a critical role in both brain reward and DAN networks in real-life and ecologically valid decision-making measures.…”

Does Emotional Intelligence Contribute to Quality of Strategic Decisions? The Mediating Role of Open Innovation

“…Due to the time limitations, social awareness is not considered in this study; it might be taken in future studies [4]. When it comes to making decisions regarding any business, usually, one may believe that an older, more experienced person can make a better decision because he knows more than a young person who has just entered the market, many years after the former [24]. The authors in [24] argue that this is not the case because an older person can have less emotional control than a young person.…”

“…When it comes to making decisions regarding any business, usually, one may believe that an older, more experienced person can make a better decision because he knows more than a young person who has just entered the market, many years after the former [24]. The authors in [24] argue that this is not the case because an older person can have less emotional control than a young person. Hence, the odds of making a better decision are with a young person with more emotional intelligence and control.…”

“…Before taking any decision, all these factors must be considered [25], else the after-effects of the decisions would be predictable and controllable if they go the other way. The span of intelligence is constant with age; the opposite is true in the case of emotional intelligence, in which younger people are more likely to take better and rational decisions than older people [24]. In this research, our target sample is the top management of commercial banks in the UAE.…”

Role of Cortisol and Testosterone in Risky Decision-Making: Deciphering Male Decision-Making in the Iowa Gambling Task

“…Studies using hierarchical regression for IGT performance explain a modest proportion of IGT decision-making because IGT is a complex task with considerable heterogeneity (large standard deviations; Bowman and Turnbull, 2003 ; Newman et al, 2008 ; Singh and Khan, 2009 ; Singh, 2013a , b ). For example, measures of emotional and cognitive intelligence explained 12% of IGT choices (adjusted R 2 = 0.12; Ramchandran et al, 2020 ), personality explained 10% of the IGT choices ( R 2 = 0.10 for males and 0.05 for females; Hooper et al, 2008 ), and heart rate explained 19% of male IGT decision-making in the risk phase ( Wemm and Wulfert, 2017 ).…”