MOTIVATED MEMORY, LEARNING, AND DECISION-MAKING IN OLDER AGE: SHIFTS IN PRIORITIES AND GOALS

Our goals across the lifespan often include gaining new knowledge, building relationships, and staying healthy. A younger adult’s goals may center on his or her acquisition of knowledge to succeed in a career, whereas older adults’ goals shift toward emotion regulation, and many may seek to build and maintain relationships with loved ones. However, motivation appears to be more complex than a single theory, such as lifespan theory of control (e.g., Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995) or socioemotional selectivity theory (e.g., Carstensen, Isaacowitz, & Charles, 1999), may suggest because older adults also pursue learning for the sake of acquiring knowledge or to satisfy