How Dopamine drives behaviour
A) Dopamine and pleasure
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter responsible for pleasure. Not pleasure after receiving a reward but anticipatory pleasure. When we anticipate something exciting, dopamine is released which makes the chase more fun than the satisfaction of getting what we want
But why did evolution design us to seek pleasure ? During evolution, resources were scarce and survival was important. Thus whatever helped us survive, made us feel pleasurable so that we end up doing things again and again. Example, carbohydrates, fats and salts were scarce during evolution. Thus whenever we would come across a sweet, salty or fat laden source of food like honey or berries we would experience a spike of dopamine and that would motivate us to repeat this behaviour again and again. Same thing would happen with drugs or sex.
But if we chase those dopamine highs through food or drinks or drugs or sex, we eventually limit our behaviours to that activity. Our pleasure seeking becomes narrower and restricted to those activities. Eventually those activities also don’t give us the expected pleasure. Thus detoxification or fasting or deprivation helps to restore the dopamine levels back to baseline. Similar effect is observed during delayed gratification. If we delay our pleasures, we can savour them and save the best for the last
B) Dopamine and novelty seeking
Dopamine also spikes up during novelty seeking behaviours. Why does it happen? Again coming back to our evolutionary past, activities like hunting and foraging for food would spike dopamine levels. But after we get what we want, dopamine doesn’t stay high. Since otherwise we wouldn’t venture out to hunt or forage. Thus dopamine eventually goes back to the baseline. Sometimes it drops even further from the baseline, which further motivates us to eventually seek out more.
Thus anything that we achieve in our life, motivates us to further achieve more to get more and more of those dopamine spikes.
Example, once an athlete who wins a gold medal or a student who comes first in class is driven to achieve further to get more and more of the dopamine spikes.
But there’s a flip side to it. After an achievement there’s a period of low which is associated with the drop in dopamine. This phenomena is seen in holiday blues or postpartum depression where after we endure a much awaited event, we experience sudden low mood giving rise to a sense of loss of purpose
So in order to sustain this dopamine high which can also be pursued through real life achievements, we should have goals and pursue them and set bigger goals eventually. Thus positive addictions can be pursued which can lead to a natural high
C) Dopamine and rewards
But pleasure and novelty are not enough to drive behaviour. Dopamine stimulates the reward pathway. If we reward ourselves with money when we do a particular behaviour, we become motivated to do more of that behaviour. But eventually rewards become predictable and expected after a certain interval. Thus they lose novelty and we start craving for more.
Some of the most addictive behaviours like gambling become addictive because the rewards are variable and come at unexpected intervals. Similar thing happens with social media. When we access social media, there may be a notification or a like or there maybe nothing or suddenly there may be a bunch of pleasing comments. Thus when we’re rewarded intermittently, unexpectedly or with a variable quantity, we get addicted to that behaviour. Thus intermittent variable rewards actually boost dopamine which drives behaviour.
Thus if we reward a child for studying with a bike or gifts, eventually he/ she will crave for more rewards and won’t be interested in studying or studying for the sake of those gifts. Thus gifts may drive his behaviour and not the interest in learning. When we give intermittent unexpected rewards like a praise or a drive or day spent outdoors which happens as a way of appreciating his efforts instead of the outcome of marks, rewards would be eventually sought in the activity itself. Thus the joy of studying and learning motivates a student which becomes a reward in itself
Thus we see how a naturally occurring chemical neurotransmitter drives pleasure, motivation and drive and what we can do to stimulate it naturally.