Challenge the Elderly Following Success

I recently asked about 100 senior adults how willing they’d be to engage in certain wellness activities and then how demanding they think each of the activities would be for them. I chose the activities from the five pillars of senior wellness used by AARP: physical exercise, nutrition, mental stimulation, sufficient sleep, and socializing. For each of the pillars, I presented my survey participants one activity which seemed to me to be relatively easy (“On 5 days each week, walk quickly for 15 minutes” for the physical exercise pillar) and one which seemed to me to be relatively harder (“On 3 days each week, exercise vigorously for 1 hour”).
     We might assume that the higher the rating of difficulty for an activity, the less willing a senior would be to do it. And that was generally how the seniors answered the questions. But about 20% of my sample responded differently. The higher they rated the effort required, the higher they rated their willingness to commit to doing it for the next year. “Bring on the challenge!” they seemed to be saying.
     What was going on? A clue comes from a set of studies at North Carolina State University, Pennsylvania State University, and Washington University in St. Louis. A total of 80 generally healthy, well-functioning adults ranging in age from 63 to 84 years were assigned a series of tasks which required cognitive ability and performance speed. The seniors’ decisions, performance, and physiological indicators of task engagement were compared to those of a set of younger adults, ages 20 to 40 years.
     Prior research finds that as we enter advanced age, we monitor our effort expenditures strictly. If a task seems more difficult, we’re less likely to take it on. This held in the North Carolina/Pennsylvania study. However, the older adults also were more sensitive than the younger adults to success at an earlier task. They seemed more willing to agree to a challenge if it was seen as worthwhile.
     The outliers in my study may have been interpreting my “How much effort would each wellness activities require?” to mean, “For each activity, how worthwhile would it be to exert effort?” If so, those who had previously been successful at an easier activity may have wanted to take on the difficult activity, considering it as better for wellness. Challenge the elderly, but give them success at an easier endeavor first.

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