5 ms·

A Crash Course in the Neuroscience of Human Motivation (2011)

102 points by jeremynixon 11y ago

vlokshin 11y ago
Thank you. The piece is a bit too long to keep the attention of most, but it's one of the most important things someone can and should understand about themselves: how they get things done, how they make decisions to get things done. I wish this is how the brains behind Asana, Wunderlist, Calendars, etc really thought about the end-user-human.
- jjoonathan 11y ago
  If only I could motivate myself to read the lengthy article about motivation maybe I could understand how to better motivate myself in other aspects of my life. But it really is a long article and I have other things to do, so... chicken, meet egg. Egg, meet chicken.
  - DanBC 11y ago
    Here's an article about procrastination which is so long many people put off reading it until they have more motivation and time. http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/procrastination/ http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/procrastination/
    - rndn 11y ago
      I like the thought that Wikipedia the result of massive collaborative procrastination.
  - DenisM 11y ago
    Undivided attention is a skill, and it can be developed. Make it a habit to read literature, something you actually enjoy, for an hour at a time, each day. In six weeks you will have trained yourself to stay focused for extended periods of time.
- tdaltonc 11y ago
  My startup[0] is building a tool kit for to make it easy for developers to build apps that work with what really motivates users. [0] www.useDopamine.com
joe_the_user 11y ago
A lot of "neuropsychology" and related approaches are questionable. The combination of some current machine-learning methods and some neuroscience results doesn't add up to anything like a global theory of how the brain works - such a global theory is just not yet in [1]. It's simpler to stick with established psychological theory if you want a theory of what makes people do thing on average.[2] But oppositely, if you're interested in how naive utility functions and the neoclassical economic view of human behavior, "homo economicus", fails to account for much of human behavior, take a lot at evolutionary game theory. [3] [1] Learning How Little We Know About the Brain http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/science/learning-how-little-we-know-about-the-brain.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/science/learning-how-littl... [2] Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Revised Edition Revised Edition by Robert B. Cialdini, Harper Business [3] Game theory Evolving, Herbert Gintis, Princeton
- charles2013 11y ago
  agreed. interesting read, yet far from complete, and certainly questionable. a couple that jumped out to me as questionable: the "discounting" section reminds me of the stanford marshmallow experiment (itself questionable iirc). i'm not convinced a marshmallow is worth an additional 5 minutes of delayed gratification, and i'm even less convinced an additional 0.07ml of juice (or a whole 0.002oz) is worth waiting at all. the "Relative and Absolute Utility" section, and particularly the quoted section of Glimcher's example, fail to acknowledge a fundamental component of human motivation: context. for example, strand someone on a remote, uninhabited, desert island (with no way to escape, etc.), and offer her a choice of $1,000,000 worth of goods or $1,000 worth of goods. her choice at this point is uninteresting because currency is arguably worthless in the absence of trade; she assigns value based on what these goods can do for her rather than what they would fetch at auction back home. for example, let's say the $1,000,000 worth of goods is a lifetime supply of jello, and the $1,000 is a safe ride home on a fishing vessel. the safe ride home is arguably the better choice despite its lower monetary value. this is why i believe it's silly to blindly apply the transitive property of inequality (in terms of monetary value) as a predictor of human motivation while ignoring context.

102 points by jeremynixon 11y ago

Thank you. The piece is a bit too long to keep the attention of most, but it's one of the most important things someone can and should understand about themselves: how they get things done, how they make decisions to get things done. I wish this is how the brains behind Asana, Wunderlist, Calendars, etc really thought about the end-user-human.

jjoonathan 11y ago
If only I could motivate myself to read the lengthy article about motivation maybe I could understand how to better motivate myself in other aspects of my life. But it really is a long article and I have other things to do, so... chicken, meet egg. Egg, meet chicken.
- DanBC 11y ago
  Here's an article about procrastination which is so long many people put off reading it until they have more motivation and time. http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/procrastination/ http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/procrastination/
  - rndn 11y ago
    I like the thought that Wikipedia the result of massive collaborative procrastination.
- DenisM 11y ago
  Undivided attention is a skill, and it can be developed. Make it a habit to read literature, something you actually enjoy, for an hour at a time, each day. In six weeks you will have trained yourself to stay focused for extended periods of time.
tdaltonc 11y ago
My startup[0] is building a tool kit for to make it easy for developers to build apps that work with what really motivates users. [0] www.useDopamine.com

joe_the_user 11y ago

A lot of "neuropsychology" and related approaches are questionable. The combination of some current machine-learning methods and some neuroscience results doesn't add up to anything like a global theory of how the brain works - such a global theory is just not yet in [1]. It's simpler to stick with established psychological theory if you want a theory of what makes people do thing on average.[2] But oppositely, if you're interested in how naive utility functions and the neoclassical economic view of human behavior, "homo economicus", fails to account for much of human behavior, take a lot at evolutionary game theory. [3] [1] Learning How Little We Know About the Brain http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/science/learning-how-little-we-know-about-the-brain.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/science/learning-how-littl... [2] Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Revised Edition Revised Edition by Robert B. Cialdini, Harper Business [3] Game theory Evolving, Herbert Gintis, Princeton

charles2013 11y ago
agreed. interesting read, yet far from complete, and certainly questionable. a couple that jumped out to me as questionable: the "discounting" section reminds me of the stanford marshmallow experiment (itself questionable iirc). i'm not convinced a marshmallow is worth an additional 5 minutes of delayed gratification, and i'm even less convinced an additional 0.07ml of juice (or a whole 0.002oz) is worth waiting at all. the "Relative and Absolute Utility" section, and particularly the quoted section of Glimcher's example, fail to acknowledge a fundamental component of human motivation: context. for example, strand someone on a remote, uninhabited, desert island (with no way to escape, etc.), and offer her a choice of $1,000,000 worth of goods or $1,000 worth of goods. her choice at this point is uninteresting because currency is arguably worthless in the absence of trade; she assigns value based on what these goods can do for her rather than what they would fetch at auction back home. for example, let's say the $1,000,000 worth of goods is a lifetime supply of jello, and the $1,000 is a safe ride home on a fishing vessel. the safe ride home is arguably the better choice despite its lower monetary value. this is why i believe it's silly to blindly apply the transitive property of inequality (in terms of monetary value) as a predictor of human motivation while ignoring context.