A 2011 survey of research on aging and consumer decision-making, meanwhile, cited study after study showing that older consumers differ significantly from their younger peers in how they make choices. They are more likely to use heuristics (aka rules of thumb), spend less time searching for new information, favor established brands over new ones, pay more attention to “affective and value-based information” and make better decisions when presented with fewer, simpler choices. I kept finding echoes in these descriptions of how President Trump is said to make decisions, and how Reagan was said to have, too. The two oldest-ever presidents weren’t exactly up on the latest information and relied a lot on gut feeling, emotion and simplicity. Is that a coincidence?
Perhaps it is — Olshansky says that septuagenarians who can handle the grueling demands of a presidential campaign are most likely “super-agers” who don’t really fit the cognitive profile of others their age. And yes, the differences among the old folks currently running for president do seem more significant than whatever age-related characteristics they may share.
Still, let’s assume that advanced age lends itself at least a little to a more heuristic, less analytical style of decision-making. We’ve been conditioned, in part by a succession of best-selling books about our decision-making flaws, to see this approach as inferior.
But there’s a school of thought that argues that heuristics often deliver better decisions under complex, fast-changing circumstances than a more reasoned, rationalistic approach. “Gut feelings are tools for an uncertain world,” German psychology scholar Gerd Gigerenzer told me a few years back. “They are not a sixth sense or God’s voice. They are based on lots of experience, an unconscious form of intelligence.”
People in their 70s and 80s definitely have lots of experience. That doesn’t mean their gut feelings are necessarily going to be right. It probably means they’ll pay more attention to them, though.
This opinion piece was provided by Bloomberg News.