1. Substance Use and Decision-Making in Older Adults
- Author
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Lab, Lifespan, Bajwa, Kamaljit, Dogra, Kirandeep, Gill, Paneet, and Bernstein, Daniel
- Subjects
FOS: Psychology ,Decision-Making ,Tobacco ,Cognitive Psychology ,Psychology ,Substance Use ,Social and Behavioral Sciences ,Alcohol ,Older Adults - Abstract
Decision-making is an important skill when evaluating possible risks and benefits in one’s everyday life. This skill is substantially impaired among prevalent alcohol and tobacco users due to impulsivity, reward-seeking behaviour and their inability to learn from experience. Past work has examined context-dependent alcohol use (i.e., participants who are intoxicated during the testing phase). However, research on long-term effects of alcohol and tobacco use on decision-making is limited, especially for older adults. Participants ages 56 and above completed two measures of decision making – the Cups task and Sunk-Cost Fallacy task. We hypothesize that higher levels of alcohol and tobacco use will lead to poorer decision-making.
- Published
- 2022
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