Project
Easing Everyday Decisions
Unit(s) of assessment: Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience
Research theme(s): Health Innovation
School: School of Social Sciences
Overview
Easing Everyday Decisions is a two-year research project funded by an Ageing Research Development Award from the UKRI. As the proportion of older adults in society grows, it becomes increasingly important to support older adults to remain happy, healthy, and independent far into old age.
Being able to confidently make decisions is at the heart of independent living, and is a core component of many activities of daily living, such as managing a budget, making purchasing decisions, safely managing medication, choosing nutritious food, and making travel and transportation plans. Poor decision-making is associated with financial vulnerability, susceptibility to scams, poor wellbeing, and ultimately, loss of independence. We aim to give older adults the tools they need to support their everyday decision-making, helping them to live healthy, satisfying, and independent lives.
Our research
As we age, decisions can take more time and effort, and we can start to make more mistakes. These changes can affect confidence, wellbeing, and willingness to stay mentally active.
In the Easing Everyday Decisions project, we have been working with older adults to find practical ways to make decision-making easier. We use experiments, interviews and surveys to understand how decision-making changes in older age, and what strategies can help.
Download our ‘Smart choices as we age’ booklet, which contains tips to support your everyday decision making through improved vision, hearing, and management of information.
Participate in our research
If you are interested in taking part in our research studies, you can join the Trent Age Panel – a database of older-adult volunteers in the Nottingham area. To find out more about the panel, please contact Stephen Badham at stephen.badham@ntu.ac.uk.
Meet the team
Dr Kate Roberts (project lead) is an Associate Professor of Cognitive Psychology. Her research uses behavioural and neuroimaging methods to investigate healthy cognition, and how cognitive abilities change as a function of ageing and brain injury.
Contact: kate.roberts@ntu.ac.uk.
Dr Stephen Badham (co-investigator) is an Associate Professor in Psychology. His research focuses on age-related changes in cognition, particularly memory, and how these can be reduced through environmental support and drawing on experience and knowledge.
Contact: stephen.badham@ntu.ac.uk.
Professor Hareth Al-Janabi (co-investigator) is a Professor of Health Economics at the University of Birmingham. His research develops quantitative and qualitative methods to understand individual decision-making and real-world resource allocation.
Contact: h.aljanabi@bham.ac.uk.
Dr Chris Atkin (research fellow) is a cognitive psychologist whose research focuses on methods to support healthy cognitive ageing and improved wellbeing in older age.
Contact: christopher.atkin02@ntu.ac.uk.
Dr Sam Perry (research fellow) is a health economist at the University of Birmingham whose research focuses on methods to support resource allocation decisions, with a focus on economic evaluation, econometrics, and qualitative methods in mental health and ageing.
Contact: s.j.perry@bham.ac.uk
Related publications
Atkin, C., Stacey, J.E., Roberts, K.L. et al. (2023). The effect of unisensory and multisensory information on lexical decision and free recall in young and older adults. Scientific Reports, 13, 16575. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-41791-1
Guan, N., Guariglia, A., Moore, P., Xu, F., & Al-Janabi, H. (2022). Financial stress and depression in adults: A systematic review. PloS one, 17(2), e0264041.
Stacey, J.E., Atkin, C., Henshaw, H., Roberts, K.L., Allen, H.A., Justice, L.V., & Badham, S.P. (2022). Does audio-visual information result in improved health-related decision-making compared with audio-only or visual-only information? Protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMJ Open, 12, e059599.
Horton, M., Oyebode, J., Clare, L., Megson, M., Shearsmith, L., Brayne, C, Kind P, Hoare Z, Al-Janabi H, Hewison V, Tennant, A., Wright P. (2021). Measuring quality of life in carers of people with dementia: development and psychometric evaluation of Scales measuring the Impact of DEmentia on CARers (SIDECAR). Gerontologist. 61 (3), e1-e11
Badham, S.P., & Hamilton, C.A. (2020). Influences of complexity on decision making in young and older adults. Europe's Journal of Psychology, 16, 280-299.
Badham, S. P., Hay, M., Foxon, N., Kaur, K., & Maylor, E. A. (2016). When does prior knowledge disproportionately benefit older adults’ memory? Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition, 23, 338-365.
Roberts, K.L., & Allen, H.A. (2016). Perception and cognition in the ageing brain: A brief review of the short- and long-term links between perceptual and cognitive decline. Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, 8:39. doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2016.00039.
Badham, S. P., & Maylor, E. A. (2015). What you know can influence what you are going to know (especially for older adults). Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 22, 141-146.
Birmingham Policy Commission III (including Al-Janabi H) (2014). Health Ageing in the 21st Century, University of Birmingham.