Why older adults become fraud victims more often

Why are older people especially vulnerable to becoming victims of fraud? A new UCLA study indicates that an important clue may lie in a particular region of the brain that influences the ability to discern who is honest and who is trying to deceive us.

 

Older people, more than younger adults, may fail to interpret an untrustworthy face as potentially dishonest, the study shows. The reason for this, the UCLA life scientists found, seems to be that a brain region called the anterior insula, which is linked to disgust and is important for discerning untrustworthy faces, is less active in older adults.

 

"The consequences of misplaced trust for older adults are severe," said Shelley E. Taylor, a distinguished professor of psychology at UCLA and senior author of the new research, which appears Dec. 3 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). "A recent study estimates that adults over age 60 lost at least $2.9 billion in 2010 to financial exploitation, ranging from home repair scams to complex financial swindles. This figure represents a 12 percent increase from 2008.

 

"Older adults seem to be particularly vulnerable to interpersonal solicitations, and their reduced sensitivity to cues related to trust may partially underlie this vulnerability."

 

"Older adults are more vulnerable. It looks like their skills for making good financial decisions may be deteriorating as early as their early-to-mid-50s," said Taylor, a founder of the field of health psychology who was honored in 2010 with the American Psychological Association's Lifetime Achievement Award.