Corinna Loeckenhoff, a new faculty member in the Department of Human Development was awarded an Innovative Research Project Award by the Bronfenbrenner Life Course Center for her research on The Role of Affect in Temporal Discounting Across the Adult Life Span. According to some estimates, almost half of the instances of premature mortality in the U.S. can be traced to problematic personal decisions (e.g., regarding weight management, substance abuse, and risky behavior). Temporal discounting, the tendency to devalue delayed gains and losses relative to immediate ones appears to play an important role in suboptimal choices. However, although such effects are well-documented in younger adults, comparatively little is known about adult age differences in temporal discounting. This makes it difficult to develop personalized interventions to promote advantageous intertemporal choices across the life span. Previous decision-making research further indicates that age groups differ in their relative emphasis on positive versus negative aspects of choices, their ability to forecast future emotional reactions, and the degree of emotional conflict in response to difficult decisions. To date, such age effects have not been studied in the context of temporal discounting.
Loeckenhoff’s studies rely on a set of novel laboratory paradigms designed to assess the role of affect in realistic temporal discounting scenarios involving both monetary and experiential outcomes. By administering these paradigms to people of different ages, the proposed research will (1) contribute to the scarce literature on age differences in temporal discounting (2) extend existing knowledge about the role of affective variables in temporal discounting, and (3) identify the mechanisms at the basis of observed age effects with the goal of developing interventions to optimize choices across the life span.
The research will not only contribute to basic knowledge about age and emotional processing in the context of temporal discounting but also provide concrete guidelines for improving decision making across the life span. To achieve these goals, she will leverage the expertise of Cornell faculty in multiple disciplines as well as the collaborative network and resources provided through CITRA.