Findings provide strong evidence that self-regulation, in particular, emotional functioning, is spared from age-related decline, if not enhanced with age (Charles & Carstensen, 2004). This pattern is in stark contrast to the substantial body of literature documenting age-related declines in cognitive ability. How ageing affects decisions that draw on both emotional and cognitive processes may have different implications for young and old adults. Experiment 3 seeks to examine how areas of preserved functioning may help in determining methods to compensate for age-related declines in fluid ability and decision-making. When
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making choices outside of the laboratory, individuals are subject to many affective factors. These factors can be seen as competing for resources, yet regulating them can also be costly in terms of cognitive reserves. The consequences of these factors on decision-making can be considered in the context of the Strength Model (Muraven, Baumeister & Tice, 1998). The Strength Model proposes that acts of self-regulation (cognitive, emotional or behavioural) all draw upon one, limited supply. Furthermore, all acts involving self-control, volition or initiative rely on this resource (Baumeister, Muraven & Tice, 2000). It is thought that this resource is easily depleted (a process known as ego-depletion). Ego-depletion has been reported across a variety of tasks in physical, intellectual and emotional domains. The relationship between ego-depletion and decision-making may have important implications in terms the type of choice a consumer will make.
Dewitte, Pandelaere, Briers and Warlop, (2005) showed that participants were significantly more likely to select a product compliant with that presented on a poster after a period of ego-depletion. In their study, participants were assigned to one of three ego-depletion conditions: high, low and no ego-depletion. This was manipulated by means of an information search task on the Internet under time pressure. Following the manipulation procedure, participants were required to select one brand from a selection of brands for several product categories. One of these brands was made salient by means of a poster display. These results suggest that ego-depletion can increase the effect of salient situational cues, such as a supporting poster display on consumers’ choice. An alternative explanation is that participants viewed the brand depicted in the poster as a default selection. Any attempt to process alternative options can be seen as requiring an increased expenditure of effort. Both these explanations are supported by Baumeister et al.,
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(1998) strength model whereby ego-depleted individuals will seek to conserve resources by reducing the level of elaboration used when making a choice. Likewise Pocheptsova et al., (2007) found that depleted individuals were more likely to engage in flawed decision strategies in an attempt to conserve energy by taking short cuts instead of engaging in effortful processes.
Other research has revealed that seemingly unrelated functions such as emotion and executive function seem to draw from the same limited resource. Indeed, decision-making is often done in the context of competing distractions and affective responses. Schmeichel (2007) investigated whether attempts to control emotional responses deplete the capacity for executive control. Participants were shown two short film clips, which were intended to elicit negative emotions. One clip depicted disgusting eye surgery and the other clip showed sad children describing family hardships. Some participants were instructed to exaggerate the outward expression of their emotions as they watched, whereas other participants were instructed to simply express their emotions. Results showed that exaggerating the expression of negative emotional responses reduced subsequent working memory span. Other researchers have shown that emotion regulation effects memory both in laboratory settings (Richards & Gross, 2000) and outside the laboratory environment (Richards, 2000). The finding that emotion regulation and cognition draw on the same resource used for executive functioning could have implications for consumer decision-making.
Research provides compelling evidence in support of the strength model, however self-regulation may not always have a depleting effect on reserves. Specifically, it is thought that different forms of emotion regulation incur different consequences, which vary as a function of age.
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Two forms of emotion regulation were defined by Gross: reappraisal and suppression. Reappraisal is thought to take place early on by engaging executive control processes to redefine the meaning of a situation and thus determine the subsequent sequence of emotions. Suppression takes place later and requires the individual to consciously manage and modify the behavioural aspects of their emotional responses. It is proposed that reappraisal entails less cognitive effort compared to suppression and therefore, when regulating emotions using this method, executive functions are more likely to remain intact. Suppression is considered to be relatively demanding of cognitive resources, which may lead to impaired executive processes. In general, research investigating the effects of emotion-regulation can be seen as supporting a model of limited resources (Gross, 1998; Richards 2000).
In terms of ageing, John and Gross (2004) proposed that older adults tend to make greater use of reappraisal and less use of suppression. This hypothesis was based upon two observations in the ageing literature. First, when compared to younger adults, older adults tend to report experiencing less negative emotion (Carstensen, Pasupathi, Mayr, & Nesselroade, 2000; Charles, Mather, & Carstensen, 2003). Second, older adults describe having greater emotional control than younger adults (Gross, et al., 1997).
Research investigating the interaction between age, emotion regulation and executive function has shown that reappraisal has a far greater impact on memory for young adults compared with older adults (Scheibe & Blanchard-Fields, 2009). In their study, Scheibe and Blanchard-Fields, (2009) allocated both young and old participants into one of three conditions: control, down-regulation and maintenance control. All participants were shown a film designed to induce
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feelings of disgust. The footage used depicted a woman eating horse rectum while describing her experience. Prior to viewing the film, participants completed a memory task and rated their emotions. Participants in the control condition were given no instructions regarding how to regulate their emotions. Participants in the down-regulation condition were told to change the negative emotions elicited by the film into positive ones as quickly as possible and, participants in the maintenance control condition were told to maintain any negative feelings experienced while viewing the film. After the film, participants again rated their emotions and completed another memory exercise. Results showed that instructions to down-regulate emotions differently affected working memory performance in young and older adults. Working memory performance was impaired after the mood induction for young adults, yet was unaffected in older adults. Furthermore, memory was unaffected in both young and old adults when they were given no explicit emotion regulation instruction, or when given instructions to maintain feelings of disgust. These findings are consistent with the literature insofar that regulating emotions is more costly for young adults compared to old (Baumeister at al., 2007; Richards, 2004).
In summary, research on both the physical and cognitive costs of emotion regulation illustrate that different emotion regulation strategies can have diverse consequences. The costs of emotion regulation may be different depending upon the strategy used. Understanding how emotion regulation interacts in terms of facilitating or mediating cognitive costs could be important to recognising its role in decision-making. Many models of judgement and decision-making propose that good decisions require a number of exhaustive cognitive processes. Because ageing is associated with fewer cognitive resources, older adults may face an increased
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disadvantage when making decisions following periods of emotion-regulation. However, literature on ageing and the positivity bias suggests that older adults simply have better strategies for dealing with emotionally demanding stimuli (Carstensen & Mikels, 2005). Alternatively, it may be that as with any practiced skill, the effectiveness of different emotion regulation strategies may change with age because cognitive resources required for practiced strategies are reduced.