Beyond the gambling paradigm: internal controllability in decision-making.

Much research within decision-making has used the standard gambling paradigm, where decision outcomes depend only on chance. Many real life decisions, however, imply personal control over decision outcomes. This paper addressed the question of how internal controllability influences decision-making. Internal controllability is assumed (i) to enhance unrealistic optimism and (ii) to result in a better cost:benefit ratio. Both tendencies support each other and predict an enhanced attractiveness for internal and controllable choice options. Participants read a scenario and made a decision afterwards. Results supported the prediction: decision-makers take the option they can personally control. This finding widens the narrow perspective inherent in much previous research based on the gambling paradigm.     

Children's and Adults' Understanding of the Feeling Experience of Courage

Children's and adults' feeling experience of courage was investigated using an interview technique for younger children and an open-ended questionnaire method for adolescents and adults. There were 80 subjects in four age groups, 6, 9, 14 years, and adults, with 20 subjects and equal numbers of males and females per age group. Six-year-olds described courage in terms of an internal state corresponding to behaviour, whereas with increasing age courage was described as a multifaceted internal state experience, centring on fear and overcoming fear. Increasingly with age, subjects believed that control over the complex experience of courage could be gained by psychological strategies, such as concentrating on one's abilities and allowing all one's feelings and thoughts. Child age groups viewed courageous activity in terms of physical risk-taking but older subjects focused on psychological risk-taking. Results are interpreted in terms of an increasingly mentalistic understanding of courage.     

Adult age differences in the ability to cope with situations of high arousal in a precision sport

Three field experiments are reported in which skilled miniature golf players varying in age were studied in three types of activities: training, minor competitions, and large competitions. Performance (i.e., number of shots) and arousal (heart rate and subjective ratings of anxiety) measures were registered in all types of activities. The major finding was that the level of performance of older adult players deteriorated in the large competitions, whereas groups of younger adult players, junior players, and youth players performed at the same level in all three events, although all of the groups exhibited a similar increase in arousal from training and minor competitions to large competitions. We suggest that older players may have a deficit in the ability to compensate for the negative effects of nonoptimal levels of arousal because of impairments in a variety of cognitive abilities critical to successful performance.