Objectives With age, decision makers rely more on heuristic and affect-based processing. However, age differences have not been quantified with respect to the affect heuristic, which derives judgments based on positive and negative feelings toward stimuli and concepts. This study examined whether reliance on the affect heuristic is associated with age, whether these patterns vary by task type, and which covariates account for age effects. Method In a preregistered study, an adult life-span sample (N = 195, 21–90 years, Mage = 52.95, 50% female, 71% non-Hispanic White) completed a battery of cognitive, personality, and socioemotional covariates as well as 3 established affect heuristic tasks: (a) a risk–benefit task, (b) a dread–inference task, and (c) an affect–impact task. Reliance on affect was indexed through (a) a negative relationship between perceived food risks and benefits, (b) a positive relationship between feelings of dread and statistical inferences about mortality risks, and (c) a positive relationship between affective responses and impact judgments when evaluating catastrophes. Results For all 3 tasks, usage of the affect heuristic was documented at the group and the individual levels. Contrary to hypotheses, age was not associated with affect heuristic use for any of the tasks. Affect heuristic indices did not correlate across tasks and showed no consistent associations with the covariates. Discussion Results suggest that the use of affect-based heuristics is context- or stimulus-dependent rather than a stable, age-associated trait. Further research is needed to validate the present results across additional domains, tasks, and stimulus types.

中文翻译：

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对情感启发式的依赖与年龄有关吗？

目标 随着年龄的增长，决策者更多地依赖启发式和基于情感的处理。然而，关于情感启发式的年龄差异尚未量化，它根据对刺激和概念的积极和消极感受得出判断。这项研究检查了对情感启发式的依赖是否与年龄相关，这些模式是否因任务类型而异，以及哪些协变量解释了年龄效应。方法 在一项预先注册的研究中，一个成年寿命样本（N = 195、21-90 岁、Mage = 52.95、50% 女性、71% 非西班牙裔白人）也完成了一系列认知、人格和社会情感协变量作为 3 个已建立的情感启发式任务：(a) 风险-收益任务，(b) 恐惧-推理任务，和 (c) 情感-影响任务。对情感的依赖通过以下方式进行指数化：（a）感知的食物风险和收益之间的负相关关系，（b）恐惧感与死亡风险统计推断之间的正相关关系，以及（c）情感反应和影响判断之间的正相关关系评估灾难。结果 对于所有 3 项任务，在组和个人级别记录了情感启发式的使用。与假设相反，年龄与任何任务的情感启发式使用无关。影响启发式指数在任务之间没有相关性，并且与协变量没有一致的关联。讨论结果表明，基于情感的启发式方法的使用依赖于环境或刺激，而不是一种稳定的、与年龄相关的特征。