Related Experiment Video
Updated: Sep 1, 2025

Operant Protocols for Assessing the Cost-benefit Analysis During Reinforced Decision Making by Rodents
Published on: September 10, 2018
Pay One or Pay All? The Role of Incentive Schemes in Decision Making Across Adulthood
Sebastian S Horn1, Thierry Schaltegger1, Ryan Best2
1Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
Objectives:
This research addresses how younger and older adults' decisions and evaluations of gains and losses are affected by the way in which monetary incentives are provided. We compared 2 common incentive schemes in decision making: pay one (only a single decision is incentivized) and pay all (incentives across all decisions are accumulated).
Method:
Younger adults (18-36 years; n = 147) and older adults (60-89 years; n = 139) participated in either a pay-one or pay-all condition and made binary choices between two-outcome monetary lotteries in gain, loss, and mixed domains. We analyzed participants' decision quality, risk taking, and psychometric test scores. Computational modeling of cumulative prospect theory served to measure sensitivity to outcomes and probabilities, loss aversion, and choice sensitivity.
Results:
Decision quality and risk aversion were higher in the gain than mixed or loss domain, but unaffected by age. Loss aversion was higher, and choice sensitivity was lower in older than younger adults. In the pay-one condition, the value functions were more strongly curved, and choice sensitivity was higher than in the pay-all condition.
Discussion:
An opportunity of accumulating incentives has similar portfolio effects on younger and older adults' decisions. In general, people appear to decide less cautiously in pay-all than pay-one scenarios. The impact of different incentive schemes should be carefully considered in aging and decision research.
Related Concept Videos
Incentive Theory: Pull Theory of Motivation
The theory differentiates between...
Decision Making
Automatic decision-making is fast, intuitive, and relies on gut feelings...
Decision Making: Traditional Method
First, a specific claim about the population parameter is decided based on the research question and is stated in a simple form. Further, an opposing statement to this claim is also stated. These statements can act as null and alternative hypotheses, out of which a null hypothesis would be a...
Timing and Consequences on Behavior
Humans, however, can respond to delayed reinforcers. We often make decisions between immediate small rewards and delayed larger rewards. This ability to delay gratification is a significant...
Reason and Intuition
Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development
Pre-Conventional Level
At the pre-conventional level, morality is primarily driven by personal...

