The Intrigue of Intermittent Reward and Cost: Unveiling Their Influence in Real Life

Authors

  • Chiang Ting
  • Xiaodan Liu
  • Ruoxi Lin
  • Guangqi Shi
  • Zihan Yang

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.61173/xgzr8f61

Keywords:

Intermittent reward, behaviors, effect, life

Abstract

This paper examines the role of Intermittent Cost (Punishment) in influencing the behavior of children who exhibit aggressive behavior through a laboratory Experiment. In the experiment, children in the treatment group were randomly placed in solitary confinement for attacking others. It is expected that Intermittent costs will reduce children’s aggressive behavior. The paper will also explore how Intermittent Cost and Reward work in the brain, finding that when people experience pleasurable stimuli, the brain starts secreting dopamine, so much so that it affects our behavior and expectations. In addition, experiments have found that when rewards are intermittent, the brain experiences higher arousal levels. This explains why people always crave cookies or continue to use social media and gamble. Finally, this paper will also discuss the possible application of Intermittent Cost and Reward in different aspects, which can help us formulate some policies and increase the flexibility of users.

References

[1] Skinner, B.F. (1948) ‘Superstition’ in the pigeon. Journal of experimental Psychology, 38(2), 168-172. https://doi. org/10.1037/h0055873

[2] Lerman, D. (1997). Effects of intermittent punishment on self-injurious behavior: an evaluation of schedule thinning. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1284041/

[3] Iwata, B.A. (1994) Toward a functional analysis of selfinjury. J Appl Behav Anal, 27(2):197-209. https://www.ncbi.nlm. nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1297798/

[4] Watson, S. (2021). Dopamine: The pathway to pleasure. Harvard Health. https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-andmood/dopamine-the-pathway-to-pleasure

[5] Petrillo, S. (2021). What makes TikTok so addictive?: An analysis of the mechanisms underlying the world’s latest social media craze. Brown Undergraduate Journal of Public Health. https://sites.brown.edu/publichealthjournal/2021/12/13/tiktok/

[6] Haynes, T. (2018). Dopamine, smartphones & you: A battle for your time. Science in the News. https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/ flash/2018/dopamine-smartphones-battle-time/

[7] Schultz W. (2016). Dopamine reward prediction error coding. Dialogues in clinical neuroscience, 18(1), 23–32. https://doi. org/10.31887/DCNS.2016.18.1/wschultz

[8] Solinas, M., Belujon, P., Fernagut, P. O., Jaber, M., & Thiriet, N. (2019). Dopamine and addiction: what have we learned from 40 years of research. Journal of neural transmission (Vienna, Austria: 1996), 126(4), 481–516. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s00702-018-1957-2

[9] George F., Kathleen E., Luc B. (1996) Intermittent rewards raise self-stimulation thresholds. Volume 74, Issues 1–2, January 1996, Pages 57-64

[10] Robinson, Mike & Bonmariage, Qi & Samaha, Anne-Noël. (2023). Unpredictable, intermittent access to sucrose or water promotes increased reward pursuit in rats. Behavioural Brain Research. 453. 114612. 10.1016/j.bbr.2023.114612.

Downloads

Published

2024-01-03

Issue

Vol. 1 No. 4 (2023): Volume 1, Issue 4

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2023 by the authors.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.