Consumer decision making and aging: A commentary

Yoon, Cole and Lee's review suggests two strategies to address elderly individuals' limitations in processing information and decision making. One is accommodation, which entails designing information processing and judgment tasks so that they are compatible with the elderly's resource limitations. The other strategy involves stimulating self-regulation. Here the premise is that elderly individuals often have the resources necessary to engage in a task, but only activate them in response to explicit directions. We discuss whether this observation reflects older individuals' inability to activate self-regulation strategies spontaneously, or their purposive rationing of their limited resources so they remain available for more profound activities.