The brain science behind motivation

Motivation is complex to uncover, as this differs from character to character. It is important to mention that the existing series of theories, such as the reinforcement theory proposed by BF Skinner, has the “law and effect” premise. He believed that behaviour was directly based on the results of our actions or feelings. Thus, the more likely the result is positive, the more times it would be repeated. On the other hand, if the result was negative, it did not always disappear. Through a series

of investigations, they found that if provided with negative reinforcement for a long period of time, the individual stopped giving it any importance and continued pursuing the negative behaviour.

On the other hand, the Maslow hierarchy of needs theory is based on the idea that essential physiological needs, such as food and water, should be met before the need for belonging or the feeling of accomplishment. Therefore, it is still being determined where motivation comes from – is it a basic human function or something we have learned and adapted to over the years? 

Attribution theory has as its foundation how individuals interpret certain events and how they relate this to their behaviour, proposed by (Heider, 1978). In said theory, there is the belief that an individual, whilst being presented with someone else’s actions, will either decide if they have acted in this manner because they have been forced to (which attributes it to the situation) or if this a behaviour from the person itself (attributed to personality).

What does all this mean? Is motivation something we learn and manifest through our behaviour? Or is this something we feel and generate automatically? That is the question.

Furthermore, Kim, S (2013) suggests the following model to have a better understanding of lasting motivation: 

• Reward driven approach
• value-based decisions
• goal-directed control

The brain areas in this model would be the amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex, and striatum. Having to be aware then that goal-setting is not as straightforward as a SMART plan, which is based on the idea that goals must be:

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Relevant

Time-based

This has been the standard way to set goals, and although it creates a good breakdown of what may be needed, it does not consider communication in your brain – which is more complicated than that! 

Being graceful and patient with the process is a must.

Let us look into our reward-driven approach system, which involves dopamine release, your orbitofrontal cortex, and the ventral striatum in the brain.

Reward driven approach

When there is a particular stimulus, which can also be described as any situation, in a reward-driven approach, we can assume this generates reward anticipation and selective approach behaviour towards the reward.

Simply put, say you have been wishing to study psychology for a long time; therefore, you know that graduating from high school will bring many opportunities to enter any psychology programme you want. This being your ultimate goal, you study hard to get into the programme and enrol in college. Once in college, your main focus is getting good grades to graduate with an honourable mention.

According to (Shultz 2004), we have a reward system to prevent extinction, responsible for primary rewards such as food or sexual excitement. Similarly, it is responsible for secondary rewards like money and social rewards like verbal praise and cooperation. Furthermore, this is located in the ventral striatum, being classified as an automatic motivation requiring relatively less attention. Predictive reward signals, which acquire a stimulus, to then associate the reward and encode it.

Okay, so let’s take a moment to digest that! We receive a little messenger who lets us know that if we finish our 10 km run, we will be hitting our longest run so far. Thus our brain recognises and encodes this feel-good messenger and saves it, making us run up to 10 km.

The same system is responsible for its approachable or avoidant behaviour to sustain motivation. Dopamine has two main divisions; mesolimbic dopamine, responsible for reward anticipation and learning, and mesocortical dopamine, which encodes the relative value of reward and goal behaviour.

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter produced in the ventral area (VTA), through globus pallidus, and released into our nucleus accumbens (NAcc) located in the striatum. Dopamine is vital to motor performance, conditioning, learning, and memory (Wise, 2004). As a result of excess dopamine, there can be a lack of the dominant motor responses, leading to making hasty and risky decisions, favouring small or immediate rewards, and behavioural disorders such as (ADHD).

The NAcc is activated when you are presented with your favourite stimulus, such as jokes, feeling in love and smoking. It is important to note that there is an anatomical separation between liking and wanting, as dopamine will play a role in wanting the stimulus, not liking it.

Which means? You don’t have to like it. It’s really just about how bad you want it.

Thus you would not necessarily have to be extremely thrilled to carry out a particular activity as long as you focus on the long-term outcome that said activity would bring (Berridge and Aldridge, 2008). The cognitive process that goes through the Orbitofrontal Cortex (OFC), amygdala and the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) consistently reported being involved in reward processing (Haber and Knutson, 2010).