Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"I think common sense would say, yes, they do. And this is where research and common sense actually come together because economists who have studied this say, yes, certainly your experience in investing does affect how you approach investments. For example, studies have shown that people who lived through the Great Depression - maybe came of age during the Great Depression and remember that tumultuous economic time when people lost money in banks right and left, when we didn't have federal insurance on bank deposits - that still stays with folks today. And they tend to be a little more cautious in investing their money. On the other hand, people who have not known anything like the Great Depression or even the Great Recession we're going through now - they've lived through times when the stock market has boomed in the 80s and 90s, and that's their investment experience - and they tend to be much more likely to get back into the stock market and to put their money there. I think one conclusion of course is everyone alive now is living through what we're going through now, and many economists think because of that - because the investment markets have been so heavily hammered by this recession - that this is going to turn everyone - even people who only lived through the 80s and 90s - turn everyone to be more cautious in investing."