Effects of Memory on Consumer Choice Across Adulthood

Consumers often rely on memory when making purchasing decisions, especially in e-commerce contexts when options are not simultaneously compared. This study examines how memory demands influence consumer decision quality across adulthood. In a task designed to mimic online shopping, 100 adults aged 25–80 chose products based on hypothetical consumer ratings that were compared either simultaneously with all rating information available (simultaneous trials) or after a delay which required recalling product ratings from memory (memory trials). Decision accuracy was lower on memory trials, and this memory-related cost was more pronounced with age. Older adults performed comparably to younger adults on simultaneous trials, so there was not an overall effect of age on decision quality. Unexpectedly, a subset of older adults spontaneously adopted a simplifying “summation” strategy, combining multiple attributes into a single composite value, reducing memory load. While this strategy defied task instructions, it may reflect the tendency for some older adults to adaptively compensate in real-world consumer contexts. These findings highlight how age-related memory abilities and strategic adaptation jointly shape consumer decision quality in memory-dependent contexts.