# A systematic review and meta-analysis of the association between age and degrees of avoidant decision-making style

## TL;DR

This study finds that older age is associated with less avoidant decision-making, particularly for complete avoidance styles, and highlights how this effect varies with age and sample type.

## Contribution

The paper provides the first meta-analysis on age and avoidant decision-making, revealing a small but significant inverse relationship and identifying key moderators.

## Key findings

- Older age is associated with less avoidant decision-making style, especially for complete avoidance.
- The association is stronger for complete avoidance (avoidant and buck-passing subscales) than partial avoidance (dependent subscale).
- The effect becomes evident only in samples beyond middle age.

## Abstract

Initial empirical evidence and theories suggest that decision-making may become more avoidant with age. However, recent studies provide inconsistent evidence for this effect. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of 19 studies (N = 7969) to assess evidence for an association between age and avoidant decision-making style. We included studies that used the avoidant subscale of the General-Decision-Making Style (GDMS) questionnaire or the buck-passing subscale of the Melbourne Decision-Making Questionnaire (complete avoidance), or the dependent subscale of the GDMS (partial avoidance). We also assessed potential moderators of the effect, including age range for each sample, gender, culture, participant sample type, publication year, decision style subscale, and degree of avoidance (complete vs. partial). Surprisingly, the data revealed a small association between older age and less avoidant decision-making style. Moderator analysis revealed that this association applied to complete decision avoidance (the avoidant and buck-passing subscales) and not partial avoidance (the dependent subscale). Additionally, moderation by sample type suggests that decision style does not become less avoidant until after middle age. We discuss important future directions for research aimed at investigating nuances that may contribute toward avoidant decision-making style in older age.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10433-025-00887-5.