Can adults discriminate between fraudulent and legitimate e-mails? Examining the role of age and prior fraud experience.

The present study assessed how accurate adults are at detecting fraudulent e-mail activity. A total of 100 younger (18-26 years) and 96 older adults (60-90 years) categorized a series of e-mails as legitimate or fraudulent phishing schemes and self-reported their fraud experiences. Younger and older adults did not differ in accuracy rates when categorizing the e-mails (72%), but older adults used a "high-suspicion" strategy where they were more likely to mislabel a legitimate e-mail as fraudulent compared to younger adults. Younger adults were less likely to be targeted by fraud than older adults, but the groups were victimized at similar rates. Being a prior fraud victim negatively related to e-mail detection performance, but this differed across age groups and the extent of fraud experience. Together, these results provide insight into the relation between fraud experience and the ability to detect e-mail scams and can inform fraud prevention and education initiatives.

Own-Group Face Recognition Bias: The Effects of Location and Reputation.

In the present study, we examined whether social categorization based on university affiliation can induce an advantage in recognizing faces. Moreover, we investigated how the reputation or location of the university affected face recognition performance using an old/new paradigm. We assigned five different university labels to the faces: participants' own university and four other universities. Among the four other university labels, we manipulated the academic reputation and geographical location of these universities relative to the participants' own university. The results showed that an own-group face recognition bias emerged for faces with own-university labels comparing to those with other-university labels. Furthermore, we found a robust own-group face recognition bias only when the other university was located in a different city far away from participants' own university. Interestingly, we failed to find the influence of university reputation on own-group face recognition bias. These results suggest that categorizing a face as a member of one's own university is sufficient to enhance recognition accuracy and the location will play a more important role in the effect of social categorization on face recognition than reputation. The results provide insight into the role of motivational factors underlying the university membership in face perception.

The Role of Cognition, Personality, and Trust in Fraud Victimization in Older Adults.

Older adults are more at risk to become a victim of consumer fraud than any other type of crime (Carcach et al., 2001) but the research on the psychological profiles of senior fraud victims is lacking. To bridge this significant gap, we surveyed 151 (120 female, 111 Caucasian) community-dwelling older adults in Southern Ontario between 60 and 90 years of age about their experiences with fraud. Participants had not been diagnosed with cognitive impairment or a neurological disorder by their doctor and looked after their own finances. We assessed their self-reported cognitive abilities using the MASQ, personality on the 60-item HEXACO Personality Inventory, and trust tendencies using a scale from the World Values Survey. There were no demographic differences between victims and non-victims. We found that victims exhibit lower levels of cognitive ability, lower honesty-humility, and lower conscientiousness than non-victims. Victims and non-victims did not differ in reported levels of interpersonal trust. Subsequent regression analyses showed that cognition is an important component in victimization over and above other social factors. The present findings suggest that fraud prevention programs should focus on improving adults' overall cognitive functioning. Further investigation is needed to understand how age-related cognitive changes affect vulnerability to fraud and which cognitive processes are most important for preventing fraud victimization.