A study from Cambridge University trained monkeys to expect either 2 or 20 liquid treats for completing certain tasks.
Think of these rewards as income earned for doing their job. Once those baseline expectations were set, the researchers would unexpectedly give them 4 (instead of 2) or 40 (instead of 20) reward units.
The crazy thing is the magnitude of the increase in reward didn’t matter — the dopamine release was the same for 4 or 40 units of liquid. The size of the reward didn’t matter nearly as much as the unexpected nature of the payout. Going from 2 to 4 gave their monkey brain the same response as going from 20 to 40.
It’s not necessarily good or bad absolute outcomes that matter when it comes to producing stimulus in your brain — it’s the unexpected good news that can cause you the most pleasure. Getting exactly what you expected is basically a non-event when it comes to the receptors that bring you pleasure.
Unfortunately, even those upside surprises eventually wear off as well and become the new baseline.
This is why achieving your financial goals is often such a letdown. If you expected it to happen, it doesn’t bring all that much joy when you check it off your list.
The Wall Street Journal had a piece this week about HENRYs (high earner not yet rich) who earn six-figures but don’t feel all that wealthy.
Here’s one of them:
Fifteen years ago if you’d told April Little that she’d make $300,000 a year, she would have pictured a life free of financial stress.
“The white picket fence–I have the whole visual in my head,” says Little, 38 years old, a human-resources executive turned career coach in Rochester, N.Y. “I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but when I
