Are different desires (e.g., food, sleep, alcohol, cannabis) experienced and regulated the same way? We tested this question in a new preprint with Yang Liu, @minzlicht.bsky.social, @wilhelmhofmann.bsky.social, and @kevinmking.bsky.social: osf.io/preprints/ps...
I’m not sure if there are others who would have expected the findings to look exactly like this but we (including Wilhelm, on whose amazing papers from 2012 we built this idea) did not!
I wrote that only in reference to our findings, where it looks like that desires differ a lot in their experience (e.g., some produce a lot more goal conflict than others) but when they occur, they are regulated the same way regardless of those differences
But as you can see in Figure 2, in these participants media desires were above average in terms of goal conflict, middle of the pack in terms of resistance attempts, and had the highest probability of enactment out of all the desires we assessed
Thank you! I haven't really thought about it to be honest, but I think it would be really cool to look at how different desires influence each other in the moment, these data are not well-suited to do that because we only asked all the questions about the strongest desire at any given time
Somehow the images didn't upload earlier, but here is the effect of goal conflict on the probability to attempt to resist the desire across desire domains:
Therefore, I would say it is worth thinking about how to test important ideas (whether they are currently considered controversial or not) well in the context of EMA :)
Thank you! What exactly do you mean by reward mechanisms in this context? I'd say regardless of whether it is considered controversial, we often see that things look quite differently in EMA data compared to other data (e.g., experimental, longitudinal)...
The takeaway: desires appear to arise & are experienced differently across domains, but they're regulated through common mechanisms. As always, we preregistered this research and data and code are available on the OSF: osf.io/5xkf8/
Finding 3: Despite all that domain-specificity in experience, the core regulatory pathways were essentially universal. Stronger desires were harder to resist. Desires conflicting with goals are resisted more. Resistance strongly reduced enactment. Same story for alcohol, cannabis, food, sleep, ...
Finding 2: Urgency traits and motivation to reduce use amplify substance desire experiences in distinct ways. People trying to cut back felt more conflict & resisted more but enacted the substance behavior at the same rate as people without motivation to reduce use.
Finding 1: Substance & non-substance desires differ in how they're experienced. Alcohol & cannabis desires depend a lot more on context; they spike in the evening, in social settings, and shift with current intoxication.
385 young adults who regularly used alcohol & cannabis completed 5 EMA prompts per day for 32 days, resulting in 24,986 momentary observations of desires as they unfolded in daily life. We used Bayesian cross-classified mixed models to estimate pathways for each domain. The findings are really cool:
Are different desires (e.g., food, sleep, alcohol, cannabis) experienced and regulated the same way? We tested this question in a new preprint with Yang Liu, @minzlicht.bsky.social, @wilhelmhofmann.bsky.social, and @kevinmking.bsky.social: osf.io/preprints/ps...
Updating my mixed-effects modelling slides... I have opinions...
#statsmeme
"My surgeon told me I don't need a heart transplant but 99% of people I speak with and interact with in real life say I clearly need a new heart, so now one of them, who is trained to be a journalist, will cut me open" (it is not impossible I need a new heart, but I'd go with the surgeon's advice)
...while I have great respect for you and love learning more about Football from you, I'm gonna go with the psychological scientists on this one
I'm not trying to make an argument at all, I'm pointing out that the scientific evidence is not line with your intuition. The disagreement appears to be whether careful studies with hundreds of thousands of kids count more or your personal lay opinion...
They are not easily observed, as careful and systematic studies with hundreds of thousands of kids show. Here is anotehr one: doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
Why do so many of you think that you can intuit when your body is releasing dopamine? I must have read this 100 times today. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that aids in a million different things (e.g., forming memories, learning, digesting, peeing, ...). You cannot sense dopamine release
...Is it possible that you are right? Yes, but so far, the most rigorous studies are not in line with your intuition. Maybe future studies will update. But what you are essentially saying is that we don't need scientific evidence because it is obvious to you, that's quite a dangerous belief IMO
This would require a longer conversation to explain (which I'd be happy to have), but you simply cannot know that 'everyone's kid is worse', and whether phones/social media have anything to do with it. There is so much causal confounding and our intuition is not able to answer these questions...
Did you read the study carefully and think about if the data support this claim? If you didn’t and just copied this sentence, or if you don’t have the training to critically read a study (no worries, it takes many years of full-time effort in my experience), maybe don’t call me “bad faith dude” 🙃
(I’m also addicted to sleep, food, water, and hanging out with my friends)
If you want to say that you “feel” addicted to social media or sth else in everyday language, that’s completely fine. I “feel” addicted to exercise, I feel an urge to do it when I wake up everyday and I get grumpy if I can’t (e.g, due to injury). That does not mean that exercise addiction is a thing
Idk because 'dopamine hit' is not a scientific term; I believe gambling behavior has the potential to look more similar to something that is addictive, yes (but I'm not an expert on gambling)
doi.org/10.1038/s415... this is a very strong study that has been cited >1,700 times, suggesting a negligible association with well-being in 300k adolescents; Mina is a brilliant NFL analyst but claiming that 'we all see it' for a very complex question such as this one doesn't make any sense
No they cannot, you cannot observe 'dopamine deficits' by looking at children.
I'm certainly not a fan of social media companies and it is not my intention to defend them; as an addiction researcher, I disagree that 'we all see it'; is there a (often malevolent) algorithm that is meant to manipulate you and keep you engaged - yes; does that mean you are addicted - no
Lack of evidence is not the same as absence of evidence, but if somebody makes an outrageous claim (which 'social media causes neuroadaptation the same way a drug does' is, in my opinion), it is on them to show evidence for this claim, not the other way around ;)