| Popis: |
Recent evidence suggests that prosociality increases in adulthood. However, little is known about the impact of prosocial motivation on cognitive function. The current experiment will investigate the effect of prosocial reward on episodic memory in younger and older adults. Younger and older participants will first complete a financial choice task featuring a series of hypothetical transfers between their own account and a food bank charity. Prosocial reward is operationalized as the charity gain, i.e., the amount transferred to the charity on each trial. On each choice trial, the charity is represented by the face of a food bank client. After a filled retention interval, participants receive a surprise old-new face recognition test. To examine the hypothesis that prosocial reward has a greater effect on older adults’ memory than on younger adults’ memory, we will examine whether successful face recognition depends on the size of the prosocial reward when the face was first encountered. We will also explore the impact of other decision parameters, such as the costliness of the transfers and whether the choices were voluntary or mandatory. In addition to the memory outcomes, we will analyze behaviour in the choice task in terms of transfer acceptance rate (in the voluntary condition) and satisfaction with transfers. These measures will index younger and older adults’ sensitivity to the parameters of the choice task (charity gain, self loss, and voluntary/mandatory nature of the transfer). |
