COGNITION, OPTIMISM, AND THE FORMATION OF AGE‐DEPENDENT SURVIVAL BELIEFS
研究了心理偏差如何导致主观生存信念与客观生存概率的偏离，发现认知能力下降随年龄增长比乐观偏差更能解释老年人高估生存机会的现象。
Abstract This article investigates the roles of psychological biases for deviations between subjective survival beliefs (SSBs) and objective survival probabilities. We model these deviations through age‐dependent inverse S‐shaped probability weighting functions. Our estimates suggest that implied measures for cognitive weakness increase and relative optimism decrease with age. Direct measures of cognitive weakness and optimism share these trends. Our regression analyses confirm that these factors play strong quantitative roles in the formation of SSBs. Our main finding is that cognitive weakness instead of optimism becomes with age an increasingly important contributor to the well‐documented overestimation of survival chances in old age.