By John Salak –
Older American adults are prime targets for financial scams. In fact, it’s estimated that every year they lose close to $30 billion on various frauds. If that’s not bad enough, research shows that about three-quarters of the money is stolen by people they know and trust.
The problem isn’t a lack of smarts. Rather, new research suggests the problem stems from an overabundance of trust. University of Florida researchers report that this vulnerability may be in part because older adults have a harder time overcoming their first impressions of people’s trustworthiness even when that trust is violated, potentially leaving them more open to deception and scams.
Their advice is simple: elderly adults should be wary of their first impressions. They should instead be focused on whether the person in question is acting in a way that really earns their trust.
“We make these decisions about trustworthiness in a split second sometimes, and that is an unreliable way to make good decisions in the long term,” said the study’s first author Marilyn Horta, Ph.D., a Florida research scientist.
“All of us, especially older adults, need to really pay attention to how a person behaves rather than our initial perceptions of whether they look trustworthy or not.”
The university’s study was based on a simple gambling game where people must choose from a deck of cards that can gain or lose points with each card drawn. The more points they get, the more money they can make. But the decks are stacked.
Some decks attempted to lure participants in with big payouts followed by even bigger losses, while the winning decks offer modest but more predictable gains. These winning decks were paired with pictures of faces, some of which were rated trustworthy and others were considered untrustworthy.
The researchers report that the majority of both younger and older adults initially opted to choose cards represented by trustworthy faces. But when losing came even with the supposedly trustworthy cards, younger adults were much quicker to learn and try switching to another deck of cards in hopes of stemming their losses.
In comparison, elderly adults took longer to adapt and start performing well, instead seeming to rely on their favorable first impressions, 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.
These results appear to indicate that older adults are at particular risk, especially if family members are involved.
“Often fraud happens through family members. If family members start acting untrustworthy, older adults are potentially not picking up on that change in behavior as well,” Ebner said. “They’re not adjusting to the new situation as much.”
Yes, the researchers admitted there is wisdom in age. But they warned even this doesn’t always offer the protection needed.
“One advantage we have in older age is the accumulation of life experience. But there might be situations where relying on previous experiences pushes us in the wrong direction, and we make the wrong decision,” Ebner added. “We have to stay aware even if we think we know who we can trust.”
