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AbstractIn later life, people are faced with a multitude of risky decisions that concern their health, finance, and personal security. Older adults often exercise caution in situations that involve risk. In this research, we asked whether older adults are also more responsive to warnings about potential risk. An answer to this question could reveal a factor underlying increased cautiousness in older age. In Study 1, participants decided whether they would engage in risky activities (e.g., using an ATM machine in the street) in four realistic scenarios about which participants could be expected to have relevant knowledge or experience. They then made posterior decisions after listening to audio extracts of real reports relevant to each activity. In Study 2, we explored the role that emotions play in decision updating. As in Study 1, participants made prior and posterior decisions, with the exception that for each scenario the reports were presented in their original audio format (high emotive) or in a written transcript format (low emotive). Following each posterior decision, participants indicated their emotional valence and arousal responses to the reports. In both studies, older adults engaged in fewer risky activities than younger adults, indicative of increased cautiousness in older age, and exhibited stronger decision updating in response to the reports. Older adults also showed stronger emotional responses to the reports, even though emotional responses did not differ for audio and written transcript formats. Finally, age differences in emotional responses to the reports accounted for age differences in decision updating.

It has long been assumed that risk taking is closely associated with criminal behavior. One reason for placing criminals behind bars—aside from punishment and protecting the public—is to prevent them from engaging in further risky criminal activities. Limited attention has been paid to whether being inside or outside prison affects offenders' risk‐taking behaviors and attitudes. We compared risk‐taking behaviors and attitudes in five risk domains (ethical, financial, health/safety, recreational, social) among 75 incarcerated offenders (i.e., offenders who are currently in prison) and 45 ex‐offenders (i.e., offenders who have just been released from prison). Ex‐offenders reported higher likelihood of engaging in risky behavior, driven largely by a willingness to take more risks in the recreational and ethical domains. Benefits attributed to risk taking as well as risk perception did not differ between incarcerated and ex‐offenders, indicating that the opportunity to take risks might underlie behavioral risk intentions. Our results also indicate that risk‐taking activities are better predicted by the expected benefits rather than by risk perception, aside from the health/safety domain. These results highlight the importance of studying the person and the environment and examining risk taking in a number of content domains.

Risk‐taking tendencies and environmental opportunities to commit crime are two key features in understanding criminal behavior. Upon release from prison, ex‐prisoners have a much greater opportunity to engage in risky activity and to commit criminal acts. We hypothesized that ex‐prisoners would exhibit greater risk‐taking tendencies compared to prisoners who have fewer opportunities to engage in risky activity and who are monitored constantly by prison authorities. Using cumulative prospect theory to compare the risky choices of prisoners and ex‐prisoners our study revealed that ex‐prisoners who were within 16 weeks of their prison release made riskier choices than prisoners. Our data indicate that previous studies comparing prisoners behind bars with nonoffenders may have underestimated the risk‐taking tendencies of offenders. The present findings emphasize the central role played by risk‐taking attitudes in criminal offending and highlight a need to examine offenders after release from prison.

AbstractAcross adulthood, people face increasingly more risky medical problems and decisions. However, little is known about changes in medical risk taking across adulthood. Therefore, the current cross‐sectional study investigated age‐related differences in medical risk taking with N = 317 adults aged 20–77 years using newly developed scenarios to assess medical risk taking, and additional measures designed to evaluate risk‐taking behavior in the medical domain. Greater expected benefits on the Domain‐Specific Risk‐Taking Scale—Medical (DOSPERT‐M) predicted more active risk taking, whereas higher perceived risk predicted less active risk taking. Next, we examined differences in active and passive risk taking, where passive risk taking refers to risk taking that is associated with inaction. Age was associated with less passive risk taking, but not with active risk taking, risk perception, or expected benefits on the DOSPERT‐M. Participants were overall more likely to opt for taking medical action than not, even more so for a scenario about a vaccine for a deadly flu than for a scenario about a chemotherapy treatment for cancer. Overall, participants were more likely to accept medication (vaccine or chemotherapy) for their child than for themselves. Increasing age was associated with a lower likelihood of accepting the treatment or vaccine for oneself. Taken together, our study provides important insights about changes in medical risk taking across adulthood when people face an increasing number of complex and risky medical decisions.