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The brain can't tell love from fear
People find alertness in all sorts of ways. Some announce a goal publicly or post a picture of themselves and commit to a result. Some write cheques to an organization they hate, to be cashed if they don't follow through. Others dedicate a marathon or a language to someone they love. From the standpoint of epinephrine, the brain does not distinguish between them, since each one promotes autonomic arousal.
The practical upshot is a kit of several reasons for a change rather than one: being drawn toward a goal, and being motivated not to feel afraid, ashamed, or humiliated for dropping it.
A cardiologist has a theory about the other side of motivation, and it is only a theory. People tell him they are going to write a book, he tells them it will be terrific, and they never write it. The praise delivers the dopamine reward of the accomplishment before any work has started, so they may never go after the real one.
Why does fear arouse the body like excitement?
Both states switch on the sympathetic nervous system, which raises heart rate, widens the airways, and releases adrenaline from the adrenal glands. Researchers have shown that people often label the same physical arousal differently depending on context. In a 1962 experiment, Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer injected volunteers with epinephrine and found their reported emotions followed the situation they were put in. The arousal itself was the shared ingredient.
How do public commitments change behavior?
Making a commitment public adds social stakes, because breaking it means losing standing with others. Researchers at Yale and elsewhere designed commitment contracts, where people forfeit money if they miss a goal, and found they raised follow-through in studies on smoking and exercise. The idea goes back at least to Ulysses tying himself to the mast. Loss tends to weigh more heavily than gain, a pattern Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky described as loss aversion.
Can praise really replace the work?
Peter Gollwitzer, a psychologist at New York University, ran studies in which people who announced their identity goals got less done toward them. His 2009 paper with colleagues reported that being recognized for an intention can give a sense of completion too early. The effect shows up in some experiments but not in all. Researchers continue to study when it appears.
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