Meter Negative Information to Older Adults

When making purchase decisions, an elderly adult seeks less information than would the salesperson if making a similar purchase. This is true on average because the salesperson is probably younger than the elderly adult and a Cornell University study verifies that advanced age leads to an intentional effort to limit the amount of data gathered for decision making.
     Study participants were presented decision scenarios considered by the experimenters particularly likely to stimulate information avoidance, with information avoidance predicted to be more pronounced in older adults. One major hypothesized reason was that the information would cue negative emotions. Older adults generally have a positivity bias in which they subconsciously and purposefully avoid the negative. For instance, one scenario used a café menu, with the information at issue being calorie counts for the items. Another scenario involved selecting a wooden office desk, with the information at issue being in a brochure about global deforestation.
     The older adult participants ranged in age from 66 to 89 years, with the average about 72 years. Results for information avoidance were compared to those from participants who were young adults (average age about 29 years) and middle-aged adults (average age about 49 years).
     As predicted, older adults were more likely than young or middle-aged adults to choose not to know the potentially disconcerting information. Avoiding the information was associated with a participant having reported on a survey that the information would make them feel bad or limit their enjoyment.
     These findings indicate that marketers could, based on good intentions, spontaneously share with an elderly shopper more information than the shopper comfortably desires. This is more likely when the information could trigger negative emotions, leading to willful ignorance. The marketer might assume that the older adult needs to know the information in order to have informed consent and might, because of cognitive or perceptual limitations, not seek it out.
     Ethical marketers are therefore wise to select carefully what information is most important for a older consumer to know, share that information first, then provide ample time for the consumer to consider it and ask further questions. Along with this, present the gist before digging into the details.
     Considering that shoppers of all ages frequently feel rushed, this strategy might be good for all selling. Still, younger shoppers are more likely to welcome an overabundance of information in order to persuade themselves they’ve done their due diligence.

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