Dopamine and Self-Motivation
Understanding the role of dopamine in personal motivation
This is the first article on a series for My Personal Cognitive Enhancement Project. Here, as a first part, we will cover basic intuitions about the literature on motivation and the related role of dopamine.
What do I mean by Motivation?
When we talk about motivation, we might be drawn towards hollywodiesque ideas of working hard for some important fight, or not giving up on the 4th quarter of a football game when our team is down by a great margin. The phrase don’t give up! comes to mind.
Although these stereotypical accounts have their merit, my goal is not to elaborate on the cultural ideals and constructs underlying the concept of motivation, but to develop a practical intuition about current scientific literature regarding what motivation is neurologically and how to properly train it, if possible.
Motivation as behavioral activation
There are many components to motivation, like appetitive behavior (seeking out food), anticipatory behavior (anticipating…
