Research On The Optimization Decision-making Tendency Of The Elderly Based On The Theory Of Social Sentiment Selection

Maximization means that people strives to search for the best choice while making a decision. At present, more researches were involved in this field, but the domestic research is still in its infancy. The study on decision-making of the elderly are increasingly covering various fields, but most on the decision-making quality of the elderly, and there is little research on the subjective feelings of the elderly during decision-making process. Therefore, this study intends to focus on the tendency of elderly to optimize, and explore new tools to measure the optimization tendency, including the Maximization Scale, and the information board experiment, which allow subjects to choose a college course, and get the information processing behavior and subjective emotional experience. In addition, based on Socioemotional Selectivity Theory(SST), this study will also examine the influence to optimization tendency of optimistic and the future time percepective during the elderly.To sum up, this study includs three parts. The first part randomly investigated 104 elderly and 106 young subjects in Wuhu and Hefei with the revised MS, and compared the tendency between the old and the young, and made an analysis with the scale. The revised scale was used to compare 302 old and 309 young subjects. Based on information board technology and the course selection task, the second part randomly selected 44 elderly and 42 young subjects, measured the age difference of information search index and subjective feelings. In addition, the results of MS and experiment were compared. Based on Socioemotional Selectivity Theory, the third study investigated the relationship of the maximization tendency, the FTP and the optimistic during 302 elderly subjects, using the revised MS, the FTP and the LOT-R.The results showed that:(1)The revised MS contains 3 dimensions, and has good measurement properties in our participants of the old and the young. The scores of the elderly were significantly lower than the young, so were the score in each dimension; (2) A significant age difference in information search index and subjective report during the information board courses was obtained, and the elderly tend to search less course attribute information, get lower repetition searching rate, and lower degree of difficulty evaluation in the selection task, while the higher degree of satisfaction and insurance. (3)Dispositional optimism negatively predicted the tendency of elderly to maximize. FTP in elderly showed no moderated effect between optimism and maximization, but decision difficulty showedd faint moderated effect between them in the elderly.The conclusions are following:(1) The revised MS has good measurement properties, and is suitable for part of the domestic old and young people. (2) Compared to the young, the elderly tend to be more satisficing with decision-making, less option information searching, and experiencing lower decision-making difficulty, but the decision-making standard of elderly showed no difference with the young. With the increase of options, the difference turns larger. (3)Dispositional optimism may affect the maximizing tendency of the old, and limited sense of future time does not have a direct impact on the tendency of maximization decision-making, but moderate the relationship between dispositional optimism and decision-making difficulty, thus indirectly affecting the elderly's emotional experience while making decision.