Long-term goals can be hard to stick to if the benefits are only way off in the future. Research suggests ways to focus on the here and now to help you ultimately achieve your more far-off targets.
Academic rigour, journalistic flair
Articles on Rewards
Displaying 1 - 20 of 22 articles
Whistleblowers should be entitled to financial support. But that has potential costs as well as benefits.
From dopamine hacking to dopamine detoxes, some people have sought to harness this brain chemical to improve their mood and productivity. But it’s far more complicated than that.
Traditional report cards sent home every few months are fine for most students. But for kids with behavioral issues, a daily report card can be a better option.
Sports wagering apps bring in-play betting right to the palm of your hand. Easy, ever-present access can lead to excitement and fun – or problem gambling.
Art classes and STEM toys are nice, but there are simple and free ways parents can encourage their child’s creativity – or keep it from getting squashed.
For a learner to be the best and to win awards, their peers must lose. This expense is far too great to ignore in a country fraught with inequalities.
Mouse brains produce random, strong bursts of dopamine and are able to control them. This may challenge many long-held ideas about learning and motivation.
New research demonstrates that it is more difficult to learn something new if the information had been rewarded in the past. In fact, the higher the reward, the worse the future learning.
Receiving a pay raise will make you feel happier only if it was bigger than what you had expected. Why? Because it helps you learn.
Forget being super self-critical and whipping yourself into shape. There are ways to set yourself up for success that are far kinder and work better.
What kind of curious are you? Scientists explore different types of curiosity and their home in the brain.
Whether the sins of our past stay with us forever has become a pertinent question of our time. A philosopher argues we don’t need to carry our past burdens – although there are some moral conditions.
When you engage in recreational gambling, you’re not simply playing against the odds – you’re battling an enemy trained in the art of deceit and subterfuge who uses human nature against you.
Our neural circuits lead us to find comfort in those like us and unease with those who differ, resulting in a battle between reward and distrust. But these brain connections aren’t the end of the story.
People tend to value potential future rewards less than similar immediate rewards when they must choose between them. Psychologists and economists call this “delay discounting”.
A new initiative called the International Brain Laboratory is tackling this fundamental mystery of neuroscience in an unusual way.
The Pokemon GO craze has tapped in to our desire to seek out rewards. But there different types of rewards in life, each designed to capture our attention, even train our behaviour.
Maths! It can turn poor darts players into slightly better ones.
Discipline is necessary for children, but we need to teach them to self-discipline, not bribe them to be good.
Top contributors
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Associate professor, The University of Melbourne
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Senior Lecturer in Psychology, University of Tasmania
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Senior Lecturer in Education, Queensland University of Technology
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Emeritus Professor, University of Nottingham, (currently CEO and Senior Vice President of the PETRA Group), University of Nottingham
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Professor of Physiology and Neurobiology, Dean of Faculty Affairs, Geisel School of Medicine, Dartmouth College
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Professor of Educational Psychology, University of Connecticut
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Associate Lecturer, Psychology, University of Tasmania
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Assistant Professor of Psychology, Concordia University
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Fellow in Psychology, Harvard University
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Associate Professor of Neuroscience, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
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Professor, School of Psychology, The University of Queensland
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Adjunct Professor of Psychology, Georgetown University
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Instructor of Philosophy, Arizona State University
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PhD researcher, Cardiff University
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Sir Henry Dale Fellow & Principal Investigator of the Motivation and Memory Lab, Cardiff University
