The evidence is convergent. Multiple independent sources reach the same conclusion, the underlying mechanism is well-characterized, and even the field's most cautious voices treat it as worth doing.
And what you find is that when we anticipate a reward, dopamine is released, we will put in the work to achieve that reward. That work could be mental work or physical work, but when the reward arrives, dopamine levels drop back down to baseline.
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Native comments, Twitter mentions, and Reddit threads about this claim — surfaced together so the conversation isn't fragmented across platforms.
Bookmarking — the dossier-vs-overview split is the right call. Most of the time I want overview; sometimes I want receipts.
Would love a "what would change this verdict" RSS feed. Sign me up if it exists.
And dopamine has some qualities that make the actual ice cream and the actual amusement park experience more pleasurable than it would be had that dopamine release not happened.
If you don't expect something positive to happen, you're just going about your day and something positive happens, dopamine and a lot of dopamine is released.
And when it is released relative to your anticipation of a reward, is key.
However, if we anticipate something positive is going to happen and then that thing happens, we experience dopamine as part of the anticipation. So even before we get the reward, there's an increase in dopamine. It's not as high as it would be, if something really novel and unexpected and positive happened, but we do get an increase in dopamine. And then, when we actually experience the reward, we experience the positive thing, there's a smaller increase in dopamine.
And when it is released relative to your anticipation of a reward, is key. If you don't expect something positive to happen, you're just going about your day and something positive happens, dopamine and a lot of dopamine is released.
First of all, there's a fundamental feature of how our brain releases and uses dopamine, that's called, reward prediction error. And the simplest way to think about dopamine reward prediction error, is that dopamine is released in the greatest amount and places us into a greater state of motivation, when something happens that's positive and novel.
So again, the biggest increases in dopamine are response to things that are positive and unexpected. Lesser dopamine is released when we anticipate something good will happen and when that happens, yes, we get some dopamine. And we also get some dopamine when the positive thing happens, think about anticipating a great meal with friends. We have some dopamine churning, our friends come over, then we have the meal and we also get some dopamine from that, but not nearly as much as we would, if it had all happened as a part of a big surprise.
when you anticipate something a little bit of dopamine is released and then when you reach that thing you engage in that thing the amount of dopamine goes up even further
It's doled out, if you will, or released when something that one hopes will happen happens. And it's released when there's a surprise, even if it's a kind of a negative surprise.
First of all, there's a fundamental feature of how our brain releases and uses dopamine that's called reward prediction error. And the simplest way to think about dopamine reward prediction error is that dopamine is released in the greatest amount and places uses into a greater state of motivation. When something happens that's positive and novel.
If you don't expect something positive to happen, you're just going about your day and something positive happens, dopamine and a lot of dopamine is released. However, if we anticipate something positive is going to happen and then that thing happens, we experience dopamine as part of the anticipation. So, even before we get the reward, there's an increase in dopamine. It's not as high as it would be if something really novel and unexpected and positive happened, but we do get an increase in dopamine. And then when we actually experience the reward, we experience the positive thing, there's a smaller increase in dopamine.
there's an updating of expectation before the final answer comes in and dopamine is coding for that.
dopamine is being released and root to a reward while a monkey or human is working for a reward and that was itself was a cool Discovery I was like Wow dopamine isn't just you know when the monkey gets the juice or when the person gets the monetary Ward it's when they think they're on the right path or they might get a reward that's when dopamine's released
if the reward is less exciting or less money or less intense than what anticipates what happens dopamine levels drop and then they drop below Baseline when they are on their way to eventually returning to Baseline and the duration of that drop is proportional to how high the peak was
then they get the reward if the reward is equal to or in excess of what they anticipated boom they get a bit more dopamine