AGING
You can't teach a middle-aged dog new tricks--at least, that's the conclusion of a new study suggesting that our attitudes may be most stubborn in our prime of life, rather than in our senior years.
Conventional wisdom holds that as we age our beliefs become more and more rigid. But Penny Visser, Ph.D., of Princeton University and Jon Krosnick, Ph.D., of Ohio State University found that middle-aged adults were in fact more resistant to attitude change than older adults.
The researchers asked thousands of people about their social and political views, then attempted to change those views by presenting an opposing argument or conflicting piece of information. While baby boomers stubbornly supported their original beliefs, elderly subjects weren't nearly as inflexible.
Older adults may accept new ideas more willingly because of a natural decline in mental sharpness and the size of their social groups, the psychologists explain. The elderly may find it harder to recognize the flaws in belief-challenging arguments, while a smaller circle of like-minded friends may mean fewer people to reinforce old points of view.
