Arguably, the primary cause of human
distress is when our deeds do not measure up to our desires, or when our short
term behavior does not correspond to our long term goals. Put another way, a major source of our
unhappiness is that we often ‘want’ something that has long term or predicted
utility, yet end up ‘wanting’ something that has utility only in the moment, or
‘decision utility’ (e.g., when we surrender to distraction rather than complete
a more valuable task). To remedy the emotional discomfort this creates, we can
rationalize why we should not want something (like the fox disparaging the
unattainable grapes), or not appraise what we would otherwise have wanted (just
avoid thinking about the grapes). Thus if we reduce the value of what we want by
reappraising it or being merely mindful of it, we will be less desirous of it
and far less upset at its prospective loss.
__________________________________________________________
A Note on Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction: MBSR
A truism in psychology is that if you are faced with a continuous dilemma between two alternative choices of equal value, your muscles will tense and you will be stressed. Specifically, if the affective value of a choice can be raised through its cognitive elaboration (imagining or looking forward to an email, a slice of cake, or other temptations) then it can create an artificial or affective dilemma that elicits tension, as you have to choose between doing the right thing and doing the dumb thing (e.g. doing your work rather than checking your email 40 times an hour). Contrariwise, if one can reduce the affective value of an alternative choice through being mindful of it (e.g. a email being just email or a cake just being a cake), then affective dilemmas can be reduced or eliminated, and you will become less stressed. Because an ever distractive world is full of affective dilemmas, mindfulness is a unique and sensible strategy to reduce stress, and demonstrates the predictive power of a dopaminergic theory of mindfulness.
For a formal interpretation of MBSR (mindfulness based stress reduction) from a dopaminergic theory of mindfulness, go here.
This latter concept of ‘mindfulness’
reduces wanting and the emotional problems that ensue due to wanting not by
reappraising events, but by not appraising them at all. Although rooted in
religious (Buddhism) and philosophical tradition (Stoicism), contemporary
explanations of mindfulness are based upon cognitive psychology and the
complementary perspective of cognitive neuroscience[i].
Cognitive psychology implies that wanting correlates with non-affective mental
processes, and this idea conforms to the emphasis in cognitive neuroscience on
the cortical structures that comprise the rational or ‘rationalizing’ aspect of
the brain. Because wanting is a uniform
concept, the practice of mindfulness (as well as meditation for that matter)
uniformly reduces all wanting through eliminating or reducing the continuous
appraisal that is an elemental aspect of wanting. Thus in mindfulness everything
in the perceptual field is observed and not appraised. Because of this,
mindfulness practice generally occurs outside of one’s working day.
The problem with this approach is that
when the perspective of ‘affective neuroscience’ is considered that gives far
greater prominence to the mid-brain systems that modulate affect, ‘wanting’ always contains an affective component
that represents the activity of sub-cortical structures, namely midbrain
dopamine systems that are activated by the cognitive elaboration of the novel
discrepancies between acts and outcomes, and do not intrinsically predict the long term utility of outcomes (i.e., as 'gut level' feelings they do not predict the future) [1].
Because of the ‘pleasure’ attendant with dopamine release, the value,
‘incentive salience’, or decision utility of behavior increases, and may
conform or dis-conform with the long term logical or predicted utility of
behavior[ii].
If they conform, then we have productivity, creativity, relaxation, and
‘happiness’, but if they do not conform, we have non-productivity,
non-creativity, stress, and ‘unhappiness’. Because wanting is comprised of
cognitive and affective components
whose ends may mutually conform or non-conform, wanting is never a purely cognitive event, and some types of wanting may be
good for you and others not so good. Hence, it would be more logical to be
mindful towards those wants that lead you astray than those that keep you on
the straight and narrow. In other words, it is best to be mindful of our
irrational wants than our rational ones. The problem is not to avoid appraisals
that may lead us to want, but to avoid those appraisals that lead us to ‘mis-want’[2]. Thus a
mindfulness strategy must focus on non-elaborative awareness of the short term
wants that dis-conform with long term goals[3].
In other words, to be not just effective but practical, mindfulness must entail not the mitigation of wanting, but of
mis-wanting.
By non-appraising what we should be mindful of rather than what we
could be mindful of, we can expand
the applicability of mindfulness to
all our working day, and finally make mindfulness a mainstream procedure that
is universally embraced. By being
mindful of distraction or distractive thoughts but not our workaday behavior as
well as avoiding useless elaborative thinking or rumination, we can gain the
benefits of mindfulness without constraining our rational wants that populate
our day. Thus mindfulness can be expanded in scope to encompass all of our daily activities without
losing its therapeutic power to reduce and control harmful emotions.
Because the activity of dopamine systems
is determined by anticipation and/or experience of unexpected changes in the perceived or elaborated relationship between act and outcome
rather than the outcome itself (e.g. think of the 'pleasure' in anticipating opening a present on Christmas and of opening it), if follows that non-elaborative awareness will
necessarily reduce dopamine activity, and therefore reduce the decision (i.e.
momentary) but not predicted utility
of objects or events[4].
Hence it is argued that the ‘mechanism’ of mindfulness is the cognitive
inhibition of the rapidly changing and virtualized relationship of act and outcomes
that elicit the positive affect that for good or ill always distorts judgment,
and simultaneously engages cortical and midbrain
structures. Thus, mindfulness ‘works’ by reducing dopaminergic activity through the
inhibition of the elaborative cognitive behavior that elicits it. Or in
other words, mindfulness reduces not the rational but the affective component in judgment or ‘wanting’.
The advantages of a dopaminergic based
explanation of mindfulness are numerous and compelling.
It is
logical
In its essence, mindfulness changes what
we want by modifying how we want,
therefore it follows logically that any explanation for mindfulness must be
rooted in the neuropsychology of wanting.
It is
simple
The neuroscience of wanting is detailed
and complex, but the description of its logical entailments is quite simple,
and requires but rudimentary knowledge of neural structures and processes.
It is
concrete
Instead of a metaphorical description of
mindfulness that depends upon abstract cognitive behavior or the complex and
indeterminate interplay of myriad cortically centered neural processes, a
dopaminergic explanation of mindfulness is rooted in specific mid-brain
structures whose behavior is determinate and clear.
It informs
procedure
By distinguishing between wanting and
mis-wanting, mindfulness procedure can be centered on mitigating those wants that
pull us in directions contrary to our long term interest, and result in regret,
stress, un-productivity, and unhappiness while keeping those wants that add zest, pleasure, and meaning to life.
It explains
Mindfulness research almost exclusively follows inductive principles,
wherein mindfulness practice correlates with specific emotional, neural, or
behavioral states. But because mindfulness is still without an adequate explanation, it is far more difficult to
justify mindfulness, specifically when posed against the equally inductive
conclusions derived from personal experience, popular media, and even academic
research that argue that a distracted and mindless lifestyle is good for you or
at most a necessary evil.__________________________________________________________
A Note on Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction: MBSR
A truism in psychology is that if you are faced with a continuous dilemma between two alternative choices of equal value, your muscles will tense and you will be stressed. Specifically, if the affective value of a choice can be raised through its cognitive elaboration (imagining or looking forward to an email, a slice of cake, or other temptations) then it can create an artificial or affective dilemma that elicits tension, as you have to choose between doing the right thing and doing the dumb thing (e.g. doing your work rather than checking your email 40 times an hour). Contrariwise, if one can reduce the affective value of an alternative choice through being mindful of it (e.g. a email being just email or a cake just being a cake), then affective dilemmas can be reduced or eliminated, and you will become less stressed. Because an ever distractive world is full of affective dilemmas, mindfulness is a unique and sensible strategy to reduce stress, and demonstrates the predictive power of a dopaminergic theory of mindfulness.
For a formal interpretation of MBSR (mindfulness based stress reduction) from a dopaminergic theory of mindfulness, go here.
[1] For example, we become
incented to eat cake, go on a date, buy a car, etc. not only because of the
utility of doing such things, but also due to the cognitive elaboration of the
novel implications of doing such things. However, these novel implications do not predict the intrinsic value of the events they predicate.
[2] Mis-wanting represents distractive, addictive, or obsessive behavior
(e.g., excessive rumination) in which the momentary affective ‘urge’ to perform
mis-matches the objective or predicted long term value of that behavior.
[3] As an example, if you want to eat cake, the urge to do
so may conform to the predicted utility of eating if it is your birthday, and
dis-conform with the predicted utility of eating if it is not. Hence to be
mindful of a ‘cake only being a cake’ reduces regret when you do so to stay on
a diet, but ironically would increase
regret if eating a cake was a cause for celebration.
[4] As an example, suppose you accidentally run over my
cat. That of course is a bad thing, but as I ruminate on all the novel ways I
will take my revenge, dopaminergic activity will increase, thus making the
decision utility of taking vengeance a whole lot more important than the long
term utility of getting even. After all, a cat is just a cat.
[ii] Berridge, K. (2009) Wanting and Liking: Observations from theNeuroscience and Psychology Laboratory, Inquiry,52: 4, 378—398 (Kent Berridge web site, including this article)
More references:
My e-book on the psychology of the internet, including discussion of mindfulness on pp. 143-151 and pp. 271-276
Below: video of presentation by Richard Davidson and Kent Berridge on the neuro-psychology of happiness.
More references:
My e-book on the psychology of the internet, including discussion of mindfulness on pp. 143-151 and pp. 271-276
Below: video of presentation by Richard Davidson and Kent Berridge on the neuro-psychology of happiness.
