Table 4.

Direct and Indirect Effects of Age on Sequence Preferences in Positive and Negative Hedonic and Monetary Contexts

	Direct effect of age before and after accounting for indirect effects		Indirect effect of age through decision-making process
	Before	After	Experience	Emotion	Reason
Context and Valence	b (SE)	b (SE)	b (SE)	b (SE)	b (SE)
Hedonic contexts
Enjoyable weekends	−.013 (.003)***	−.015 (.003)*	.0007 (.0004)*	.0009 (.0005)	−.0002 (.0003)
Painful procedures	−.007 (.003)**	−.005 (.003)*	−.0005 (.0003)*	−.0007 (.0004)	−.0003 (.0002)
Monetary contexts
Receiving money	−.024 (.003)***	−.023 (.003)***	−.0004 (.0003)	−.0010 (.0005)*	.0004 (.0003)
Paying money	.007 (.003)*	−.006 (.003)+	−.0004 (.0003)	.0000 (.0005)	−.0006 (.0004)*

Note. Indirect effects represent the contribution of each process when holding the others constant and the change in the criterion variable associated with a change of only one year of age. To see the effect of a larger age difference, the estimate can be multiplied by, for example, 20 to show the effect of a 20 year age difference. To facilitate that exercise, we provide estimates of indirect effects to four decimal places. For age, higher values indicated older age. Greater reported reliance on experience, emotion, and reason to make decisions were indicated by higher values. For hedonic and monetary contexts, lower ratings indicated a preference for the “biggest” event sooner over later meaning that preferences for improving sequences were shown in lower scores for negative events (painful procedures, paying money) and higher scores for positive events (enjoyable weekends, receiving money). Normatively correct preferences of maximizing current value were shown in lower scores for receiving money and higher scores paying money.

N = 1,289

^* p < .05

^** p < .01

^*** p < .001.