Tali Sharot on the problem of Habituation…

Monday, February 26.2024.

Dr. Tali Sharot, a cognitive neuroscientist, has conducted research on habituation, particularly in the context of human decision-making and behavior. Habituation refers to the psychological phenomenon where repeated exposure to a stimulus leads to decreased response or attention to that stimulus over time.

Sharot's work delves into how habituation impacts various aspects of human cognition and behavior, shedding light on its implications for learning, motivation, and emotion.

The awareness and definition of habituation is essential ground for Marriage and Family Therapy.

Here are the habituation definitions she has explored:

• Positive Habituation: Sharot has investigated how habituation influences the brain's response to positive stimuli. For example, she has shown that repeated exposure to rewarding experiences can lead to diminished pleasure or excitement over time.

  This has implications for understanding why the initial thrill of novelty wears off with time and how individuals might seek out new experiences to counteract habituation.

• Negative Habituation: Similarly, Sharot has studied habituation in the context of aversive stimuli. She has explored how prolonged exposure to adverse events or stressors can lead to decreased emotional reactivity.

  This can have implications for understanding resilience and adaptation to adversity, as well as the development of psychological disorders such as anxiety and depression. Negative habituation is useful. She suggests doing unpleasant tasks in a similar fashion, and powering through in sameness and routine. Nike was right. Just do it.

• Implications for Decision-Making: Sharot's research on habituation has implications for understanding human decision-making processes. For instance, she has shown that people overestimate the long-term impact of positive or negative events because they fail to account for habituation.

  This can lead to biases in decision-making, such as overvaluing short-term rewards or underestimating the adaptability of individuals to adverse circumstances.

• Interventions: Sharot's work also explores potential interventions to counteract habituation and promote sustained engagement or behavior change. For example, she has investigated how framing information or experiences in specific ways can prolong their impact and prevent positive habituation.

  Understanding the mechanisms underlying habituation can inform the development of more effective interventions in various domains, such as education, marketing, public health, and Marriage and Family Therapy.

Overall, Dr. Tali Sharot's research on habituation offers valuable insights into the complexities of human cognition and behavior, highlighting the importance of considering how repeated exposure to stimuli influences our perceptions, emotions, and decision-making processes.

Dr. Tali Sharot's research on habituation spans various studies across cognitive neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral economics. Here's a deeper dive into some specific studies and findings:

Positive Habituation:

In a study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience in 2007, Sharot and colleagues investigated the neural mechanisms underlying positive habituation. They found that the brain's reward system, including the ventral striatum, showed reduced activation in response to repeatedly presented rewarding stimuli, indicating habituation.

This study provided neuroscientific evidence for the phenomenon of diminishing pleasure with repeated exposure to positive stimuli.

Negative Habituation:

Sharot's research has also explored habituation to negative stimuli.

In a study published in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience in 2012, she and her team demonstrated that repeated exposure to aversive images led to habituation of the amygdala response, a key brain region involved in processing negative emotions. This suggests that the brain's emotional response to negative stimuli diminishes with repeated exposure, which may have implications for understanding anxiety disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Decision-Making Biases:

Sharot has investigated how habituation biases decision-making processes. In a paper published in Neuron in 2011, she and her colleagues showed that people tend to overestimate the duration of emotional reactions to future events because they fail to account for habituation. This finding suggests that individuals may make suboptimal decisions by overvaluing the long-term impact of emotional experiences due to a lack of consideration for habituation effects.

Interventions and Framing:

• Building on her research, Sharot has explored interventions to counteract habituation and promote sustained engagement. In a study published in Psychological Science in 2011, she investigated how framing information in terms of its rarity or uniqueness can mitigate habituation and prolong its impact on decision-making. For example, presenting information as "rare" or "unusual" can increase its perceived value and prevent habituation, leading to more sustained behavioral responses.

• Take Breaks. It’s as counter-intuitive as it is true… Pleasure is enhanced when you take breaks from the pleasurable activity.

• Pursue Novelty. One consistent aspect of Tali Sharot’s work is her emphasis on balancing novelty and familiarity. There’s a sweet spot for learning for everyone. Try to find yours. According to this research, boredom is more lethal and toxic than we assume.

Final thoughts

By conducting these studies and others, Dr. Tali Sharot has advanced our understanding of habituation and its implications for various aspects of human cognition and behavior.

This is vital, essential work. Talia explains that even if you’re living your “best life,” if these elements remain so constant and unchanging, especially if your brain feels a sense of numbing sameness, depression might actually result.

I was fascinated as a little boy when the Twilight Zone revealed this truth.

Humans need other humans and meaning and control over their lives. We also need to understand how our brains work.

Her work underscores the importance of considering habituation effects in decision-making, emotion regulation, and designing interventions to promote behavior change. Habituation fertilizes disappointment and dissatisfaction. We need to de-habituate our lives as thoughtfully as possible.

This is why in-person intensive therapy is so profoundly effective.

You get out of dodge, escaping the sameness of the familiar. The beauty of the Berkshires is genuinely breathtaking.

I’ve just posted a wait list for the 2024 season, which commences May 1, 2024.

Be well, stay kind, try something new, and Godspeed.

REFERENCES:

Sharot, T., Shiner, T., Brown, A. C., Fan, J., & Dolan, R. J. (2009). Dopamine enhances expectation of pleasure in humans. Current Biology, 19(24), 2077-2080.

Sharot, T., De Martino, B., & Dolan, R. J. (2009). How choice reveals and shapes expected hedonic outcome. The Journal of Neuroscience, 29(12), 3760-3765.

Sharot, T., Riccardi, A. M., Raio, C. M., & Phelps, E. A. (2007). Neural mechanisms mediating optimism bias. Nature Neuroscience, 10(9), 1028-1030.

Sharot, T., Velasquez, C. M., & Dolan, R. J. (2010). Do decisions shape preference? Evidence from blind choice. Psychological Science, 21(9), 1231-1235.

Sharot, T., Delgado, M. R., & Phelps, E. A. (2004). How emotion enhances the feeling of remembering. Nature Neuroscience, 7(12), 1376-1380.

Sharot, T., Phelps, E. A., & Shu, J. (2011). How choice reveals and shapes expected hedonic outcome. Neuron, 70(2), 210-220.

Sharot, T., Korn, C. W., & Dolan, R. J. (2011). How unrealistic optimism is maintained in the face of reality. Nature Neuroscience, 14(11), 1475-1479.