Older adults made more maladaptive episodic memory-guided social decisions, but not only because of poorer memory: Older adults were biased toward remembering people as being fair, while young adults were biased toward the opposite

Lempert, Karolina M., Michael S. Cohen, Kameron A. MacNear, Frances M. Reckers, Laura A. Zaneski, David Wolk, and Joe Kable. 2022. “Aging Is Associated with Maladaptive Episodic Memory-guided Social Decision-making.” PsyArXiv. May 11. doi:10.31234/osf.io/b4h27

Abstract: Older adults are frequent targets of financial fraud. They may be especially susceptible to victimization because of age-related changes in both episodic memory and social motivation. Here we examined these factors in a context where adaptive social decision-making requires intact associative memory for previous social interactions. Older adults made more maladaptive episodic memory-guided social decisions, but not only because of poorer associative memory. Older adults were biased toward remembering people as being fair, while young adults were biased toward remembering people as being unfair. Holding memory constant, older adults engaged more with people that were familiar (regardless of the nature of the previous interaction), whereas young adults were prone to avoiding others that they remembered as being unfair. Finally, older adults were more influenced by facial appearances, choosing to interact with social partners that looked more generous, even though those perceptions were inconsistent with prior experience.