The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity―and Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race

by Daniel Z. Lieberman

reward prediction error, and it means just what the name says. We constantly make predictions about what’s coming next, from what time we can leave work, to how much money we expect to find when we check our balance at the ATM. When what happens is better than what we expect, it is literally an error in our forecast of the future:

Thus we see three possible solutions to buyer’s remorse: (1) chase the dopamine high by buying more, (2) avoid the dopamine crash by buying less, or (3) strengthen the ability to transition from dopamine desire to H&N liking. In no case, though, is there any guarantee that the things we so desperately want will be things that we will enjoy having. Wanting and liking are produced by two different systems in the brain, so we often don’t like the things we want.

Many of the decisions that addicts make, particularly the harmful decisions, are impulsive. Impulsive behavior occurs when too much value is placed on immediate pleasure and not enough on long-term consequences. Desire dopamine overpowers the more rational parts of the brain. We make choices that we know are not in our best interest, but we feel powerless to resist. It’s

Nicotine, in fact, is an unusual drug because it does very little except trigger compulsive use. According to researcher Roland R. Griffiths, PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, “When you give people nicotine for the first time, most people don’t like it. It’s different from many other addictive drugs, for which most people say they enjoy the first experience and would try it again.” Nicotine doesn’t make you high like marijuana or intoxicated like alcohol or wired up like speed. Some people say it makes them feel more relaxed or more alert, but really, the main thing it does is relieve cravings for itself. It’s the perfect circle. The only point of smoking cigarettes is to get addicted so one can experience the pleasure of relieving the unpleasant feeling of craving, like a man who carries around a rock all day because it feels so good when he puts it down.

It’s fun figuring out things, and it’s fun carrying out the strategies developed to “game” the intricacies of car buying and the daily trip to work. Why? As always, the function of dopamine flows from the imperatives of evolution and survival. Dopamine encourages us to maximize our resources by rewarding us when we do so—the act of doing something well, of making our future a better, safer place, gives us a little dopamine “buzz.”

I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. —Thomas A. Edison

We need to believe we can succeed before we are able to succeed.

Most of the time, we mirror the actions of people we’re talking to. If one person touches his face or gestures with his hands, so does the other. But this time it was different. When it comes to dominant and submissive postures, the research participants were more likely to adopt a complementary posture rather than mirror the same posture. Dominance triggered submission, and submission triggered dominance. It didn’t happen all the time, though. A minority of participants mirrored the confederate. Would that have an effect on the underlying relationship? The researchers gave the participants a survey to fill out. They wanted to know how they experienced the interaction with the confederate. Did they like her? Did they feel comfortable with her? It didn’t matter if the confederate took a dominant or submissive posture. Participants who took the complementary posture not only liked the confederates more, they also felt more comfortable with them compared to the participants who mirrored the confederates. Finally, researchers asked the participants a series of questions to find out if they were aware of how they were responding to the confederate. Did they know their posture was being influenced by the posture of the other person in the room? It turned out they had no idea. It all occurred outside of their consciousness. We unconsciously know when someone has a high expectation of success, and we get out of their way. We submit to their will—the overwhelming expression of thei...

A relationship that is formed for the purpose of accomplishing a goal is called agentic, and it is orchestrated by dopamine. The other person acts as an extension of you, an agent who assists you in achieving your goal. For example, relationships we make at networking events are primarily agentic, and typically result in mutual gain. Affiliative relationships, on the other hand, are for the purpose of enjoying social interactions. The simple pleasure of being with another person, experienced in the here and now, is associated with H&N neurotransmitters such as oxytocin, vasopressin, endorphin, and endocannabinoids.

Consider a spy stationed in a hostile country, trying to gain access to a government building. While prowling around a back alley, he runs into the janitor. The spy treats the janitor as his equal, perhaps even his superior, in order to gain his cooperation—submissive behavior aimed at dominating the environment and reaching his goal.

People with schizophrenia control their dopamine activity by taking medications that block dopamine receptors (Figure 4). Receptors are molecules that sit on the outside of brain cells and catch neurotransmitter molecules (such as dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins). Brain cells have different receptors for different neurotransmitters, and each one affects the cell in a different way. Some receptors stimulate brain cells and others lull them into a state of tranquility. Changing cell behavior is how the brain processes information. It’s similar to transistors turning on and off in a computer chip.

For example, if a child grows up with critical parents, she may develop the conviction that she is an incompetent person, and this belief will shape the models of the world that she creates all her life. Therapists can address these faulty, often unconscious assumptions through psychotherapy, which may include insight-oriented psychotherapy, in which the patient and the therapist work to uncover suppressed memories that locked in the negative assumptions. Another helpful technique is CBT, which addresses the assumptions head on, and teaches the patient practical strategies for changing them.

As we gain experience with the world, we develop better and better models, and this is the basis of wisdom. We embrace models that work well, and discard the ones that fail to take us where we want to go. Knowledge passed on from previous generations can help us improve our models in a different way than direct experience.

DREAM INCUBATION: HOW TO SOLVE

An Icelandic study that evaluated the genetic profile of over 86,000 people discovered that individuals who carried genes that placed them at greater risk for either schizophrenia or bipolar disorder were more likely to belong to a national society of actors, dancers, musicians, visual artists, or writers.

The characteristics the study eventually associated with liberals—risk-taking, sensation-seeking, impulsivity, and authoritarianism—are the characteristics of elevated dopamine.1 But do dopaminergic people really tend to support liberal policies? It seems that the answer is yes. Liberals often refer to themselves as progressives, a term that implies constant improvement. Progressives embrace change. They imagine a better future and in some cases even believe that the right combination of technology and public policy can eliminate fundamental problems of the human condition such as poverty, ignorance, and war. Progressives are idealists who use dopamine to imagine a world far better than the one we live in today. Progressivism is an arrow pointing forward.