Behavioral proxies compete by the time courses of their rewards, including endogenous rewards.

Natural selection is slow, so behavioral goals must be based on patterns of reward. Addictions are rewarded in the same way as adaptive choice, so they can be distinguished only by their time course. In addition, the reward process is more plastic than is generally recognized, so abstract goals are shaped by the "legibility" of their proxies.

"Switching" between fast and slow processes is just reward-based branching.

Shortcuts to goals are rewarded by faster attainment and punished by more frequent failure, so selection of the various kinds - heuristics, cached sequences (habits or macros), gut instincts - depends on reward history just like other kinds of choice. The speeds of shortcuts lie on continua along with speeds of deliberation, and these continua have no obvious separation points.

Behavioral construction of the future.

OBJECTIVE: To examine Howard Rachlin's hypothetical model of molar choice as a tactic for resisting addictions and to explore how some of its then-radical components can be developed to account for nonphysical and far future rewards. METHOD: The history of Rachlin's long dialog with the present author about molar choice is reviewed. The possible implications are described of both authors' proposal that behavior can depend entirely on reward. RESULTS: Molar choice entails bringing wider-and thus further future-contingencies to bear on current choices. The two authors proposed mechanisms with different foci, which they respectively called teleological behaviorism and intertemporal bargaining. Laboratory results have been modest, but supplementary demonstrations by thought experiments and brain imaging are described. Both proposals have left open how the value of distant outcomes, such as sobriety, savings, and healthy aging, survives temporal discounting enough to compete with present motivational pressures. In contradiction to Rachlin, but following his suggestion that reward is behavior, it is deduced that some reward must be endogenous rather than secondary to external primary rewards. Endogenous reward is proposed as a fiat currency that can function only to the extent that it is protected from inflation by some kind of uniqueness (singularity). Such uniqueness can be provided by personal disciplines for testing reality, but also by extraneous factors such as needs, coincidences, and biases. CONCLUSIONS: Rachlin's teleological behaviorism is a valuable hypothesis, but limited by its ruling out of nonexternal rewards and of intrapersonal self-prediction, both of them useful for understanding nonsubstance addictions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Framing is a motivated process.

Frames group choices into categories, thus modifying the incentives for them. This effect makes framing itself a motivated choice rather than a neutral cognition. In particular, framing an inferior choice with a high short-term payoff as part of a broad category of choices recruits incentive to reject it; but this must be motivated by its being a test case.

Reply to commentaries to willpower with and without effort.

Twenty-six commentators from several disciplines have written on the assumption that choice is determined by comparative valuation in a common denominator of reward, the "competitive marketplace." There was no apparent disagreement that prospective rewards are discounted hyperbolically, although some found that the resulting predictions could come just as well from other models, including the interpretation of delay as risk and analysis in terms of hot versus cold valuation systems. Several novel ideas emerged.

Willpower with and without effort.

Most authors who discuss willpower assume that everyone knows what it is, but our assumptions differ to such an extent that we talk past each other. We agree that willpower is the psychological function that resists temptations - variously known as impulses, addictions, or bad habits; that it operates simultaneously with temptations, without prior commitment; and that use of it is limited by its cost, commonly called effort, as well as by the person's skill at executive functioning. However, accounts are usually not clear about how motivation functions during the application of willpower, or how motivation is related to effort. Some accounts depict willpower as the perceiving or formation of motivational contingencies that outweigh the temptation, and some depict it as a continuous use of mechanisms that interfere with re-weighing the temptation. Some others now suggest that impulse control can bypass motivation altogether, although they refer to this route as habit rather than willpower.It is argued here that willpower should be recognized as either or both of two distinct functions, which can be called resolve and suppression. Resolve is based on interpretation of a current choice as a test case for a broader set of future choices, which puts at stake more than the outcome of the current choice. Suppression is inhibiting valuation of (modulating) and/or keeping attention from (filtering) immediate alternatives to a current intention. Perception of current choices as test cases for broader outcomes may result in reliable preference for these outcomes, which is experienced as an effortless habit - a successful result of resolve, not an alternative method of self-control. Some possible brain imaging correlates are reviewed.

Positivity versus negativity is a matter of timing.

"Negative" emotions are never purely negative. They attract attention at the very least and often stay attractive enough to make rehearsing them an addictive activity. As the authors point out, they also counteract a relentless tendency for positive emotions to become boring. Analysis in terms of reward suggests why this tendency occurs and how symbiosis with negative emotions may arise, in art and in life.

Psychopathology arises from intertemporal bargaining as well as from emotional trauma.

The role of emotional trauma in psychopathology is limited. One additional mechanism is predictable from hyperbolic discounting: When a person uses willpower to control urges each success or failure takes on extra significance through recursive self-prediction, potentially motivating several constricting defense mechanisms. The need for eliciting emotion in psychotherapy is as the authors say it is, but their hypothesis about reconsolidation of memories adds no explanatory power.

A "cohesive moral community" is already patrolling behavioral science.

Authors of non-liberal proposals experience more collegial objections than others do. These objections are often couched as criticism of determinism, reductionism, or methodological individualism, but from a scientific viewpoint such criticism could be easily answered. Underneath it is a wish to harness scientific belief in service of positive social values, at the cost of reducing objectivity.

Selfish goals must compete for the common currency of reward.

Selfish Goal Theory is compatible with a behaviorally based theory that recognizes mental processes as behaviors. Both envision choices as made by the competition of purposive processes, which are autonomous in that they are not coordinated by an agentic "self." However, the survival of mental processes - termed "goals" or "interests," respectively - depends on a well-documented active mechanism: reward.

Increased functional coupling between the left fronto-parietal network and anterior insula predicts steeper delay discounting in smokers.

In previous work, smokers showed steeper devaluation of delayed rewards than non-smokers. While the neural correlates of this link between nicotine dependence and delay of discounting are not established, altered activity in executive networks may relate to impaired delayed gratification. The goal of this study was to examine neural correlates of discounting and their relation to nicotine dependence. Thirty-nine smokers and 33 non-smokers completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) intertemporal choice task in which they made individualized Hard (similarly valued), easy (dissimilarly valued), and control monetary choices. FMRI data were analyzed using a group independent component analysis and dual regression. Smokers discounted more steeply than non-smokers, although this difference was only significant among severely dependent smokers. Intertemporal choices recruited distinct left- and right-lateralized fronto-parietal networks. A group-by-difficulty interaction indicated that smokers, relative to non-smokers, exhibited less difficulty-sensitivity in the right fronto-parietal network. In contrast, smokers showed greater functional connectivity between the left fronto-parietal network and the left fronto-insular cortex. Moreover, the degree of functional connectivity between the left fronto-parietal network and left fronto-insular cortex was significantly correlated with individual differences in discounting. Thus, greater functional coupling between the anterior insula and left fronto-parietal network is a candidate neural substrate linking smoking and impulsivity. Given the anterior insula's role in interfacing cognitive and interoceptive processing, this altered functional connectivity may relate to an addiction-related bias towards immediate rewards.

The behavioral and neural effect of emotional primes on intertemporal decisions.

Research on intertemporal behavior has emphasized trait-like variance. However, recent studies have begun to explore situational factors that affect intertemporal preference. In this study, we examined the associations between emotional primes and both behavior and brain function during intertemporal decision making. Twenty-two participants completed a dual task in which they were required to make intertemporal choices while holding an expressive face in memory. From trial-to-trial, the facial expression varied between three alternatives: (i) fearful, (ii) happy and (iii) neutral. Brain activity was recorded using functional magnetic resonance imaging for 16 participants. Behavioral data indicated that fearful (relative to happy) faces were associated with greater preference for larger but later rewards. During observation of fearful faces, greater signal change was observed in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. During subsequent decision making, the fear prime was associated with greater signal increase in structures including the posterior sector of the anterior cingulate cortex. Individual differences in this activity correlated with the magnitude of the priming effect on behavior. These findings suggest that incidental emotions affect intertemporal choice. Increased farsightedness after the fear prime may be explained by an 'inhibition spillover' effect.

Monotonous tasks require self-control because they interfere with endogenous reward.

Self-control is a necessary component of subjective effort, but it depends only on farsighted motivation, with no additional, depletable resource. The aversiveness of boring tasks probably comes from their interference with endogenous reward, a new and potentially controversial concept. The self-control needed to stick with any kind of aversive experience increases as the values of the competing motives draw closer together.

Intertemporal bargaining in addiction.

The debate between disease models of addiction and moral or voluntarist models has been endless, and often echoes the equally endless debate between determinism and free will. I suggest here that part of the problem comes from how we picture the function of motivation in self-control. Quantitative experiments in both humans and non-humans have shown that delayed reward loses its effectiveness in proportion to its delay. The resulting instability of preference is best controlled by a recursive self-prediction process, intertemporal bargaining, which is the likely mechanism of both the strength and the experienced freedom of will. In this model determinism is consistent with more elements of free will than compatibilist philosophers have heretofore proposed, and personal responsibility is an inseparable, functional component of will. Judgments of social responsibility can be described as projections of personal responsibility, but normative responsibility in addiction is elusive. The cited publications that are under the author's control can be downloaded from www.picoeconomics.org.

Cold climates demand more intertemporal self-control than warm climates.

A climate that is too cold to grow crops for part of the year demands foresight and self-control skills. To the extent that a culture has developed intertemporal bargaining, its members will have more autonomy, but pay the cost of being more compulsive, than members of societies that have not. Monetary resources will be a consequence but will also be fed back as a cause.

Intertemporal bargaining predicts moral behavior, even in anonymous, one-shot economic games.

To the extent that acting fairly is in an individual's long-term interest, short-term impulses to cheat present a self-control problem. The only effective solution is to interpret the problem as a variant of repeated prisoner's dilemma, with each choice as a test case predicting future choices. Moral choice appears to be the product of a contract because it comes from self-enforcing intertemporal cooperation.

Moderators of the association between brain activation and farsighted choice.

There is equivocal support for the hypothesis that preference for later larger (LL) over sooner smaller (SS) monetary alternatives (e.g., $50 in four months over $30 today) is associated with functioning of the insula and the prefrontal cortex (especially the lateral PFC). In the present study, we re-examined overall neural correlates of choice using a procedure to minimize potential confounds between choice (which is necessarily not under experimental control) and valuation. In addition, we assessed whether choice-related brain activity is moderated by 1) overall level of delay discounting and 2) the degree of stochasticity in individuals' intertemporal choices. Twenty-one participants completed an individualized intertemporal choice task while brain activity was measured using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). Across participants, LL choice was associated with activity in left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), left insula/inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), frontal pole and the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Stochasticity positively moderated the LL>SS activity within the left insula and left IFG. Degree of discounting also interacted with choice related activity, but only outside the LL vs. SS main effect map (in the posterior cingulate cortex, and precentral/postcentral gyrus and left dlPFC). Main effect results are consistent with the notion that lateral prefrontal activity during intertemporal decisions bias selection in the direction of LL. Correlation findings indicate that choice related activity in the left insula and IFG is moderated by the stochasticity of intertemporal choices, and may reflect reduced "executive function" demands among highly consistent participants.

Drugs' rapid payoffs distort evaluation of their instrumental uses.

Science has needed a dispassionate valuation of psychoactive drugs, but a motivational analysis should be conducted with respect to long-term reward rather than reproductive fitness. Because of hyperbolic overvaluation of short-term rewards, an individual's valuation depends on the time she forms it and the times she will revisit it, sometimes making her best long-term interest lie in total abstinence.

The relationship between addiction and reward bundling: an experiment comparing smokers and non-smokers.

AIMS: Previous studies indicate that addicts show reduced preference for more delayed versus more immediate rewards compared to non-addicts. This may reflect a lower propensity to view such decisions in terms of the larger sequences to which they typically belong (e.g. smoking is a frequently repeated act). Therefore, this study aims to test whether, in a sequence of decisions involving smaller, sooner (SS) versus larger, later (LL) rewards, suggesting or forcing people with a propensity to addiction to make the decision for the series as a whole would increase LL preference. It is hypothesized that people without a propensity to addiction should benefit less from being encouraged to think of reward sequences because they already tend to take that view. DESIGN: Thirty regular smokers (as exemplars of addicted individuals) and 30 non-smokers chose between small short-term and larger long-term monetary rewards over a sequence of four decisions spaced 2 weeks apart. Subjects were divided into three groups: one who made each decision independently with no suggestion that they be considered as a series ('free'), a group to whom it was suggested from the start that they consider each decision as part of the series ('suggested') and a group who were told that their very first choice in the series would be used for the remaining decisions ('forced'). All subjects were paid the amounts they had chosen. SETTING: A laboratory room at the University of Cape Town (UCT). PARTICIPANTS: UCT undergraduate volunteers. ANALYSES: The proportion of LL choices in each subgroup was evaluated by χ(2) tests and a probit model. FINDINGS: Smokers increased their preference for LL rewards when 'bundling' of individual decisions into a sequence was either suggested or forced. This preference increased with repeated experience. Non-smokers showed neither pattern. CONCLUSIONS: The propensity of smokers to prefer small short-term rewards over larger delayed rewards may be mitigated, over a sequence of decisions of this kind, by encouraging or forcing them to think of the sequence as a whole. If replicated, this finding may form the basis of an intervention that could attenuate the choice patterns characteristic of addiction.

Striatal hyposensitivity to delayed rewards among cigarette smokers.

BACKGROUND: Brain regions that track value (including the ventral striatum) respond more during the anticipation of immediate than delayed rewards, even when the delayed rewards are larger and equally preferred to the immediate. The anticipatory response to immediate vs. delayed rewards has not previously been examined in association with cigarette smoking. METHODS: Smokers (n=35) and nonsmokers (n=36) performed a modified monetary incentive functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) task (Knutson et al., 2000) that included opportunities to win either immediate or delayed rewards. The delayed rewards were larger and equally preferred to the immediate rewards. RESULTS: Across groups, greater activation was observed in regions previously shown to track value including bilateral ventral/dorsal striatum during the anticipation of immediate relative to delayed rewards. This effect was significantly greater among smokers than nonsmokers within the right ventral striatum. This group difference was driven particularly by low striatal activation among smokers during delayed reward trials. CONCLUSIONS: The general tendency for striatal reward anticipatory activity to be attenuated when rewards are delayed is exaggerated among smokers relative to comparison participants. Among possible explanations of this relationship are that (1) low anticipatory response to delayed rewards is a phenotypic risk factor for smoking and (2) smoking-related neuroadaptations result in reduced recruitment during the anticipation of delayed rewards.