A question was raised during the Dear Hank and John podcast released on January 11 as to what the youngest age would be in which they would be willing to die to ensure that they lived that long. Hank and John Green gave their answers (with John going the risk-averse route, picking a younger age - 73 (he did revise this to 78) and Hank playing the odds, and picking an older age - 86). John viewed this question in terms of ensuring that he wouldn’t die whereas Hank though of it as an opportunity to extend his lifespan. In psychological terms, John was demonstrating a prevention focus whereas Hank focused on promotion. According to regulatory focus theory, a promotion focus occurs in situations in which an individual is seeking to grow and advance in order to achieve a match between their current and ideal selves. A prevention focus occurs when one is motivated to remain secure and safe in order to maintain their current situation. As one would expect, those who tend toward prevention (as John did) are more risk-averse in their decision-making when it comes to potential gains.

The question of what others considered a good age piqued my interest, so I created a survey asking nerdfighters what age they would have chosen (54 participated).

The majority of individuals chose ages between 70 and 90. Interestingly, the average age was 78.13 years old, which is almost spot on with the approximate life expectancy for a U.S. citizen (which is around 79 years depending on date of birth - click the link for other country’s expectancies as well). However, when broken down by sex of the individual, men were more risk-seeking with an average age of 80.5**, whereas women averaged 74.45. This is actually the reverse pattern in terms of life expectancy with men expected to live to around 76 and women around 81. This finding supports research demonstrating that males are more risk-seeking when it comes to the domain of health.



It is worth noting that although life expectancy is a decent metric to consider when it comes to the overall health of a nation, it falls a bit short at the level of the individual. This is because a single number does not capture the variability or shape of the distribution. For example, a female who is 80 years old actually has about a 50% chance of living 10 more years! Furthermore, when it comes to individual life expectancy, people actually tend to underestimate how long they will live (as many did in this survey), which has negative implications for things like retirement planning. Overall, individuals do tend to be risk-averse when it comes to choosing between a sure thing or a risk, even if the risk yields superior outcomes (e.g., most people prefer a certain $200 over a 1/3 chance of $600).

Ultimately, for most people the answer to this question is probably not as simple as entering one’s demographics into a formula. When making decisions, it is rarely raw numbers that lead to decisions, but what meaning people extract from those numbers. People may focus on important markers in their lifetimes - meaningful events that they would not want to miss. For example, John focused on his 50th anniversary as an important date that he would like to experience.

Although focusing on meaningful life events can be a useful way to think about this question, one’s ability to complexly imagine which events will be important as you age may be limited. In fact, research has shown that your brain essentially treats thoughts about your future self as if you were thinking of another person. In other words, you may think you know when you are ready to die at your current age, but that date may change as you get older. As you can see in the figure below, older participants tended to choose higher numbers than younger participants.

Although it is unlikely that any of us will face this exact conundrum at any point in our lives, this mental exercise has provided a lens with which to examine how we make decisions. It has shown us how one’s aspiration can encourage risk-taking with a promotion focus) whereas one’s fears can lead to risk-aversion (via prevention focus). It has illuminated sex differences that exist with regards to risky decision-making, with men preferring to take bigger risks (a tendency that ironically may also contribute to their lower life expectancy). Finally, it allowed us to see the difficulty in imagining what our future selves will value, giving a whole new meaning and importance to the phrase “imagine others complexly”.





*Please check out the Deciderata youtube channel for more videos that approach interesting questions from a psychological perspective!

**Outliers (responses greater than 120 or less than 30) were not included in the reported statistics