According to research at Cornell University, “Many older adults experience decline in mental processes. But this need not be a handicap, because they largely can compensate by relying more on their strong emotional functioning, which doesn’t decline with age.” Joseph Mikels, a psychologist at Cornell, says emotional skills may compensate for short-comings in memory and other decision making skills.

An assistant professor of human development in the College of Human Ecology, Mikels says older adults:

• do not experience age-related declines in emotional processing
• should trust their “gut feelings” when making decisions, and
• prefer not to have too much choice.

Article authors Susan Lang and Andrew Reed write, “Just because seniors prefer simple decisions doesn’t mean they cannot process complex ones. Research shows that older adults are more selective than younger adults in using mental processing and deliberation–they consciously conserve effortful deliberation for major social and emotional decisions.

Mikels notes, “As we age, we start to make decisions in different ways. If older individuals don’t seem to deliberate deeply over all of the details for a decision and tend to go with their gut, this strategy may be very adaptive, and you should encourage it.”

Read the complete article:
“Researcher to elderly: Focus on ‘gut feelings’ to improve decision making” by Susan Lang and Andrew Reed in Cornell University Chronicle Online (January 26, 2009).