The cliché, "it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks," applies to humans, too. A recent study conducted in part by LAS psychology graduate research assistant Alex Konkel explains how behaviors developed over a lifetime remain automatic while newly learning behaviors require the kind of control that diminishes with age. This may explain why it can be so hard for older adults to "learn new tricks" and maintain them over time.
Results from the study suggest that over time, even our bad habits (smoking cigarettes or over-eating) become automatic behaviors. Even if we consciously try to put new good intentions into place, those previously learned habits remain stronger in more unconscious forms of memory.
Additionally, the research may also explain how stress weakens our control over memory and behavior, so that habitual responses from the past become more influential. With control weakened, those automatic responses-such as smoking a cigarette or eating that second cookie-can override our new good intentions of abstaining.
Participants in the study first learned one way of responding to a cue word (e.g., "Say 'cup' when you see 'coffee' "), and then later learned another way (e.g., Now say 'mug' when you see 'coffee' "). They were given memory tests both immediately after learning the words, and on the next day. Some people were told to control their memory and give only the first response. Others were told to just give whichever response came automatically.
Those controlling their responses did a good job of giving only the first response on both days. But for those who responded automatically, the results were more revealing. On the first day, their answers were split evenly between the two possibilities. However, on the second day, they gave the first response ("cup") much more often than the second response ("mug"). The second response seemed to fade from memory, while the first response grew even stronger than it had been on the first day.
Those findings suggest that even though the strength of an old habit may fade over time, our memory for it will be stronger then any new good intentions that follow.
Konkel's colleagues in the study were psychologists Cindy Lustig at University of Michigan, and Larry L. Jacoby at Washington University.
