How are you using Intermittent Reward? (and why you should think about trying it)
Random Intermittent Reward (known as Variable Ratio Reinforcement Schedule in the field of Applied Behavior Analysis) is a powerful concept from psychology. It states that the increase in motivation (through dopamine) from the anticipation of a reward is stronger when the reward is not guaranteed. You can see this effect in action with gambling, social media, mobile games (especially loot boxes), and dog training. If you're noticing themes of manipulation or addiction, that's not accidental. In the most typical and visible places that random intermittent rewards are implemented, it reinforces behaviors that are not well aligned with people's values.
It seems like a waste for something this effective to only be used against us, when it could be a huge asset for our personal growth.
I want to know if you have tried using this concept to motivate yourself to do things that are important to you. How did it go? What kind of behaviors were you trying to motivate? What kind of rewards worked or didn't?
Disclaimer: I've been using this concept for a while now to great effect, so I'm building a phone app to make it easier, more effective, and fun to use. You can go to https://tantaluspath.com to see more information and sign up to get notified when the app is available.
I mean... I am definitely partial to a lil' treat. But could you provide some details of a framework? How does one go about being both the administrator and the recipient of the lil' treat?
I think the general idea is that you engage in a timed work activity, and then use a method like a coin toss, dice roll, or computer RNG to determine if you get a reward, or possibly what it is. For example, every hour of focused work, you flip a coin and heads you get two pieces of licorice.
I don't personally think I would find this helpful, but I can see why some would. I view discipline like a muscle that you can build up through regular exercise, and maybe this will help folks do so. Personally, I do have treats for myself at the end of the day, but I decide if I want them, and don't need the interval. But I have lots of practice being disciplined in my day to day.
Perhaps it could also help folks who are neurodivergent stay on task?
But... I can just get licorice whenever I want. If I flip a coin and it says no licorice, wouldn't the willpower required to say "aw shucks I guess no licorice this time" while full well knowing that I'm an adult that can in actuality have licorice whenever I want just outweigh the willpower I would have just used to motivate myself to do the task without a reward at all?
Yeah, I dunno. For me I suspect I've just found my routine for doing difficult work, and bribing myself was never a super effective strategy personally. I do reserve a treat for the end of the day, but that's more to give myself something to look forward to rather than a reward for doing things I don't like.
Personally when I need to do deep work, I make a French press of coffee, maybe one of those bake at home pastries from whole foods, and dive in. Things like chores I've habituated myself to get done early so I can then enjoy my time unencumbered by worrying about chores.
But if this method helps others, all the better for them to experiment.
What you're describing in the first paragraph is a little closer to Variable Interval Reinforcement except that for that you would want to use a random timer to determine when the reward arrives to encourage action over the entire interval (versus periods of low activity right after each hour with no reward). I've experimented with that one but haven't found it as personally helpful as the Variable Ratio schedule, though there's a good amount of scientific literature about it as well.
This idea is well supported- the part of the brain that is getting trained is the anterior midcingulate cortex. In my time of applying intermittent reward, I've seen improvements in my ability to apply willpower, but the use of intermittent reward to train willpower is in the realm of anecdote and animal studies at this time.
I suspect using willpower to deprive yourself of a wanted treat through any mechanism helps you develop willpower. The trappings around the method might help or hinder, but if the only thing stopping you from getting the candy is yourself, that is flexing the muscle.
That's true, but to add a little bit, the "muscle" is trained by purposely resisting something, but also by engaging with something that is challenging or difficult. Both of those are at play when you use intermittent reward system as a motivation tool. Anecdotally, the engaging in the difficult tasks is harder for me than withholding the reward, but your guess is as good as mine as to extent each of those contribute to improved willpower because science hasn't provided a conclusive answer to that yet.
I feel like a random-duration repeating timer, between say 2 minutes and 1 hour, with a 100% getting reward if you're on-task, would do better. I've not studied this in detail however.
I feel that the duration bringing the intermittent would build that subconscious "well I better keep working because I'll never know when the reward comes."
My pattern looks something like this:
I'm only half of the administrator for the reward because the other half comes from some source of real RNG, so I just have to commit myself to withholding the treat from myself until the RNG says I can have it and making rolls when I've earned them
Can you give some examples you've successfully used this for?
I'm trying to apply this to programming. When I reach a stage I'm satisfied with i definitely need a break, I think I'll get quite frustated if I'm not taking a break then and end up working poorly.
Sure, I've broadly seen success with this, but the areas that were most impactful for me so far have been
What have you tried so far?
I've used the pomodoro technique for this type of work. Working in 25 minute increments and giving myself a 5 minute break. It works well. I suppose flipping a coin during those 5 minutes and potentially getting a reward could hack the lizard brain a bit. I did use an app for a while that allowed you to make a little garden with all your little sprints. Planting more stuff unlocked some other plants.
But I don't think a reward like candy/internet-free-swim-time would be a motivator to me at all. For me if a reward is offered for a task then it becomes a transaction. Unless the reward is commensurate with my resistance to the job I'll just opt out of the job. Applying probability to the reward would just diminish the expected value.
What really motivated me is buy in. I don't really lose motivation or discipline if I've bought into the project.
I honestly don’t get it.
I understand it but for the most part I don’t feel it. At least not very strongly.
Slot machines are supposed to be the most powerful example of this but I find their appeal to be very limited. I feel more excitement for the shiny whirly bits than the rewards a lot of the time. I suppose it’s because I am more disappointed by the anti-rewards than I am excited by the actual rewards. Bidding 120 credits and “winning” 80 credits feels very insulting, and the lack of any reward after it takes my money is very disappointing.
It’s not entirely lost on me, though. Arcade medal pushers use the same kind of addictive behavioral traps but I find them more engaging because you always get something at the end, even if you know it was a bad deal to spend $20 in tokens to come out with a handful of candy.
Rewards in general have mixed results for me. There are a lot of video game incentives that don’t work for me. I hate grindy RPGs because leveling up feels more like a chore than a reward. Some games are monetized on their rewards structures (Fortnite style season passes, for instance), but those actually drive me away from them.
I really don’t know how to motivate myself sometimes. The only things that tend to motivate me is doing things to avoid negative repercussions or if I’m going to learn about something I’ve found interesting.
Finding stuff that works as a reward for you is key. One thing that has helped for me is to move some types of rewards from the "I want it so I do it" category to "This is something I need to earn". This both increases the value of the reward because it is no longer freely available as well as mentally connecting the desire for the reward to the activity you will do to earn a chance at it.
So in your case, maybe when you come across something interesting, you add it to a list to explore later and use that exploration session as your reward
I've tried to do things like this many times before, and the hard part is contriving a method of rewards. If it's something I'm doing to myself, I know I can just get the reward whenever I want whether I perform the task or not. I can't foist it on a friend or family member because that tends to cause resentment on both sides (proven by experience). So to me it takes just as much discipline to adhere to the rewards system as it takes to do the work.
So is the difficulty for you primarily coming from stopping yourself from cheating your system by giving yourself unearned rewards? I'm curious what kinds of rewards you've tried and the kind of tasks that you wanted to boost your motivation to do
Either just giving myself the reward without having done the work, or just deciding to skip both and do something else.
Usually the task is something like studying for a class/MOOC or trying to get personal programming projects completed. For rewards, I've tried: all sorts of food rewards, being allowed to play a game I like, social media apps, gamifying apps like Habitica, going on walks, mild OTC stimulants, and even nicotine. Actually nicotine worked pretty well for a little while, but it eventually became a vape addiction I had to break.
I grew up with undiagnosed ADHD and had felt it's impact on my life for about 25 years before finding out. Learning that all my decisions are largely just the release of chemicals, based on the circumstances and learned outcome, has been life changing.
As stupid as it sounds, I constantly, at a micro level, incentivize myself. If I'm studying something, I set a timer on my computer for an hour and when it goes off, it's time to play some games. I have a "To do" list and a "Prize" list that both get updated regularly, I get to pick from them alternatively, but the only rule is that I cannot repeat anything until 10 items on the list have been used (Keep myself from doing the same fun game over and over and over). This has the effect of keeping my cycling on things, keeping me from doing the same easy "To do" task over and over, forcing me to eventually hit the hard ones, but also incentives me not to avoid the hard things, because I know that eventually it'll just be hard task after hard task.
Any time I am out and want to buy fast food or something frivolous for myself, I work to convince myself of my goals and values. If the end result is a "Good" choice, then I transfer whatever I would have spent into a savings account. That way, I'm not just denying myself something good, but rewarding myself later on in saved resources for a crisis or something I do need later on.
The one challenging thing about this system is that it requires building trust with yourself and being kind to yourself when you fail. If you're both horse and carrot then what's to keep me from giving myself the carrot all the time? I tend to defeat this issue by viewing myself as 3 distinct people. Past me, present me, and future me. When past me preps all the pills for present me, it fills me with affection for the kind gesture. It also incentivizes me to do the same for future me, because I know how it feels to be taken care of like that and I have extra energy, because past me did a task early.
This sounds interesting, but not sure if it would work for me personally. I find that rewarding only works to motivate me to a limited extent. The issue is that rewards are often not 100% a good thing - they cost money (buying myself something really nice), take up space (buying myself something small and cute that I don't really need), or undermine my efforts at good habits (eat something sweet). If I try to reward myself with experiences, it feels wrong - I shouldn't have to do tasks to go for a nice lunch or have a spa day once in a while, especially not while I'm stressed out from work as it is.
It's a problem - sometimes even when I want to treat myself, I forget or it doesn't work out or it's too much of a hassle. The other day I went to buy myself a nice notebook as a treat, and I ended up buying nothing because I don't actually need a notebook and none of the ones on offer were nice enough to convince me otherwise. So I think maybe the rewards system just isn't for me.