A new study by University of Texas at Dallas researchers examining how older adults learn to trust might shed light on why they tend to fall for financial scams more often than younger adults. “Other studies have assumed that there was a learning problem in older adults, but we don’t see that. “Positivity bias posits that older adults tend to remember and act on positive information more than negative or neutral information,” Seaman said. The older participants on average rated the predictably untrustworthy partner slightly more likable than the less predictable, neutral one. “This suggests that as a group, older adults in our study did not retain explicit memories to the same extent as younger adults,” Seaman said.