Sixty young men between 18 and 26 years of age and 60 within the 65-75 year age range, matched for verbal ability and socioeconomic status, were given two paired associate learning tasks differing in level of difficulty under neutral, supportive, and challenging instructions. Older persons revealed a greater performance decrement on the more difficult talks than did the younger group; they did least well on the acquisition phase of learning under challenging instructions and best under the supportive treatment. No differential effects of instructions on relearning was found. The difference between young and old in number of trials needed to master the material under the supportive condition was significantly smaller than under the challenging one. The effects of feelings of inadequacy aroused by the ego-involving instructions on the difficult task were discussed in relation to their interference with the performance of the older persons. (se)