motivation. qotd taylor kugler what do you think motivation is mainly driven by? a) drives b)...
TRANSCRIPT
Motivation
QOTD
Taylor Kugler
What do you think motivation is mainly driven by?
A) Drives
B) Incentive
C) Needs
Megan Rosa
What motivates you to do well in school?
A. the satisfaction of doing well
B. getting good grades
C. wanting to go on to grad school or getting a good career
D. to please my parents
E. I have no motivation
Sarah Daugherty, Betsy Bennett
How many people in your life do you know that have had an eating disorder?
A. None
B. 1-5
C. 6-10
D. 10 or more
The Big Questions / Issues
What is non-obvious about motivation? Textbook treatment is mostly naming the obvious Does neuroscience make it more interesting?
Challenge questions: Why to you procrastinate? Why do people go to graduate school?
Behaviorist Motivations:Get rewards, avoid punishments..
Pavlov
Skinner
Dopamine
Motivating Phenomenology
Why is it so hard to start something (packing for a trip, writing a paper, paying bills, cleaning desk…) But once started, it really isn’t so bad..
Motivating Phenomenology
Ever find yourself playing mindless video games for far longer than you should?
Why can’t I stop myself from organizing my kid’s Legos, or cleaning leaves from pool?
Two Phases of Mental Life
Goal selection Careful weighing of costs / benefits to select goal
Multiple constraint satisfaction of needs, “drives”, opportunities, risks, costs, effort, etc..
Goal engaged Selected goal robustly held – hard to give up..
Continuous evaluation of proximity to goal
Dopamine bursts, dips as function of changes
Costs are significantly downplayed (but learned)
Strong dissociations in value functions
Why is it so hard to start something (packing for a trip, writing a paper, paying bills, cleaning desk…) But once started, it really isn’t so bad..
Goal selection process carefully weighs costs / benefits, considering many different possible goals
Applied to Phenomenology
Applied to Phenomenology
Ever find yourself playing mindless video games for far longer than you should?
Why can’t I stop myself from organizing my kid’s Legos, or cleaning leaves from pool?
Goal is engaged: incremental progress drives dopamine – video games engineered to deliver
Costs, alternatives are downplayed
SMBC by Zach Weiner
Dopamine = progress toward goal
LV = phasic dopamine driven by engaged goalPV = was goal achieved or not; time to select new
Distributed Goal Network
Striatum: helps select, maintain coordinated reps throughout network (BG gated WM)
Sample Goal Taxonomy
Map of Goals in vmPFC
• Driven by subcortical connectivity
• High-dimensional, multi-factorial representation
• Consistent with fMRI, MDD in sgACC, etc
Clinical Disorders
The Goal-Driven Brain areas are implicated in major clinical disorders Depression OCD ADHD PTSD
Clinical Disorders
Depression Vicious cycle of: negative affect -> inability to select
goals -> negative affect -> .. (helplessness) Everything has high cost, low gain
OCD Insatiable goals constantly re-selected, driving
habitual motor plans.. Avoidance goals: when is avoiding over?
Clinical Disorders
ADHD Difficulty sustaining engaged goals Data shows it is not a cognitive issue: all about
motivation instead.. PTSD
Inability to overcome negative memory with positive goal (can’t avoid or attack)
Often leads to depression (helplessness)
The Default Mode..
Same goal areas active “by default” – whenever we get a chance, we ruminate over goal-relevant past events and future plans..
Goal Lateralization?
Dominant Left frontal areas encode dominant (active) goals
Subordinate Right frontal areas monitor for alternative goals Right ventral frontal cortex in stop signal (Chatham
et al, 2012) Task switching – inactive task in right (Charron &
Koechlin, 2010)
Possibly Non-obvious Results
Providing extrinsic rewards undermines intrinsic motivation!
- e.g., rewarding kids for homework?
Emphasizing trait makes people nervous
- “you’re so smart” vs. “you worked hard!”
Challenge Problem: Grad School
Grad students work long hours for little $ and a low-probability shot at becoming a professor.. Why?
What is strongest motivator?
A. Money
B. Social: fitting in, approval, impressing
C. Food, drink
D. Fear of punishment