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Alzheimer's Association International Conference 2026

July 12-15, 2026 | London, United Kingdom, and Online

11851

Building Better Habits: Making Healthy Aging More Rewarding

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Poster Presenter

Chelsea Hennessy

Authors

Chelsea Hennessy

Affiliations

University of the Sunshine Coast Thompson Institute

Part of Topic

Public Health -> Population Health Prevention Strategies -> Risk Reduction

Background:

Maintaining independence is central to healthyaging and dementia risk reduction1.
Aging is often associated with stronger relianceon habits2,3 which could support manyautomatic, daily behaviours.
Understanding habit formation and changeacross the adult lifespan could help informinterventions that promote healthy aging.

Aim: To explore the balance between goal-directed(GD) and habitual control across adulthoodand improve understanding of age-relateddifferences in forming and changing habits.

Method:

Previous outcome-revaluation paradigms4were adapted to develop the novelSymmetrical Known-AssociationsRevaluation Task (sKART).
Older (n=38, Mage=69.03, 26F) and youngeradults (n=36, Mage=23.39, 22F) GD andhabitual responding was measured using thesKART.
The sKART used semantically relatedstimulus-outcome (S-O) pairings to betterfacilitate associative learning during aging.
The task used a two-choice response design instead of Go/NoGo to reduce non-response ambiguity and preserve reaction
time data for richer insight into this
behavioural balance during aging.

Results:

Both age-groups formed strongervaluable S-R habits duringtraining.
At test, habits interfered withupdated GD control for both age-groups (valuable: Mdiff = -18.92, p < .001,95% CI [-21.35, -16.49], d = 1.80;nonvaluable: Mdiff = -20.25, p < .001, 95%CI [-23.62, -16.88], d = 1.28).
Age related differences wereentirely specific to nonvaluableconditions (Mdiff = 18.67, p < .001, 95%CI [12.10, 25.25], d = 1.18)

Conclusions:

Aging does not appear to reflecta uniform shift toward habitualcontrol.
Valuable outcomes producedstronger habits than nonvaluableoutcomes with value appearingimportant for learning and habitformation across adulthood.
Interventions promoting healthyaging may benefit fromleveraging meaningful, rewardingoutcomes to build durable,health-supporting habits.

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