The majority of both younger and older adults initially opted to choose cards represented by trustworthy faces. But when they started losing with the supposedly trustworthy cards, younger adults were much quicker to learn and tried switching to another deck of cards in hopes of stemming their losses.
It took elderly adults most of the game before they started performing well, as they seemingly favored their first impressions of trust, which obscured that the cards were bad. The younger group had an average age in their early 20s, while the older cohort averaged between 70 and 75 years old.
Interesting. Less exploratory behaviour and a lower tendency to re-evaluate situations seems like something that comes with two things:
experience that previously served one well (and made one confident)
a less flexible neural system (making it burdensome and hard to re-evaluate viewpoints and beliefs)
Part of the remedy could probably be self-criticism (awareness of one's weaknesses) and part could be medical interventions to give the flexibility back.
Is* it older adults or is it only boomers? Legit question. They grew up when you could leave doors unlocked and seem to think it's still this way in a lot of their behavior.
