The motivational triad and the moods of happiness
Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains
its original dimension. —Oliver Wendell Holmes
We have discovered the secret of life. —Francis Crick
For centuries, theologians and philosophers have speculated on the purpose and meaning of life, and they undoubtedly will continue to do so in the future. But on the biological level, the purpose of life is becoming perfectly clear.
Scientists have known for a long time that nature works according to a plan, but until quite recently the plan itself was not fully understood. After sifting through mountains of evidence, researchers have come to an extraordinary realization. The bodies and minds of all creatures are designed for the same purpose—for survival and reproduction. Scientists have a more exacting way of describing this—the replication of genes—but it means the same thing.
This insight is vitally important because once you understand the fundamental details of your design, you can become much more effective in your pursuit of health and happiness.
World's Oldest Preoccupations We now know that every creature is born with its own set of biological tools, physical and mental capabilities well adapted for each one's unique ecological niche. Each creature is a superbly crafted survival and reproduction machine. For example, sharks have rows of sharp teeth for a reason—so that they can tear flesh. They tear flesh to eat. They eat to survive. If they survive long enough, they might reproduce. If they do, their offspring will attempt the process all over again.
Gazelles have the same ultimate motivation. Why do they run away from cheetahs? They run so that they won't get eaten. If they don't get eaten, they'll get a chance to reproduce. If they are successful, their offspring will get an opportunity to try to do the same.
For more than three thousand million years, creatures have battled, bitten, strutted, and stalked in a timeless and mysterious competitive dance. They instinctively knew all the steps and twirls, but never once did they grasp the overall scheme. All they knew was that sometimes they felt good and sometimes they felt bad. Astonishingly, that was all that they ever needed to know.
In the natural environment, something that feels good is good. That is nature's way of guiding creatures to fulfill their biological purpose—survival and reproduction.
Humans are guided by this design in virtually the same way. There is a reason why we seek food and shelter, avoid foul-tasting water, make friends, search for romantic partners, and stay out of bad neighborhoods. We do these things to increase the odds that we will survive and reproduce. If we are successful, our offspring will repeat the process with the same fervor.
When you look at yourself in the mirror you are looking at a biological success story. You are the result of generation after generation of ancestors who got enough to eat and who were successful enough to reproduce. You are the prize your ancestors worked so hard to achieve, and you carry inside of you the genes—and therefore the traits—that made them successful. These traits are what the late astronomer Carl Sagan described as "shadows of forgotten ancestors."1
Interestingly, while the ultimate biological purpose of life is survival and reproduction, creatures like sharks and gazelles are not aware that their actions are guided by a drive to reproduce their genes. Neither are human beings. In fact, the purpose of all of our various actions seems to be something entirely different. The purpose seems to be to feel good (and to avoid feeling bad) as much of the time as possible.
Emotional Guideposts To reproduce their genes, all creatures must make choices and take risks, each of which will either increase or decrease their chances for survival and reproduction. To be effective, they need a system that lets them know if they are succeeding or failing. In order to signal animals when they were doing well or poorly, nature evolved a set of feedback systems to help creatures gauge their effectiveness. These feedback systems are feelings—both physical and psychological—and they are key features in nature's plan.
This biological feedback system is why doing well at the important goals of life leads to good feelings. It is why eating a meal is enjoyable—we need to eat in order to survive; why getting a good night's sleep feels good—we need rest to repair our bodies and to recharge our nervous systems for another day of effort; and why sexual activity is so exquisitely pleasurable—we need to have sex in order to reproduce. In the same way, rotten food, sprained ankles, and the loss of love lead to bad feelings. Bad feelings are unpleasant but valuable signals that important life goals have been threatened, and they encourage us to do something about it.
Of the two distinct types of tools—physical and mental—that creatures use to survive and reproduce, the physical tools are the most obvious and familiar. They include things like wings, arms, teeth, skin, hearts, and lungs, which are designed to make each creature effective at negotiating the physical challenges of life.
The second set of tools—the mental tools—are less obvious but equally important. In fact, for modern human beings they may be more important. These mental tools consist of specialized neural circuits that give feedback by means of good and bad feelings, which guide us toward our natural desire to feel as good as possible as much of the time as possible.
This motivational system is a three-part mechanism that encourages us to (1) seek pleasure, (2) avoid pain, and (3) conserve energy. Collectively, we call these three components the motivational triad. These components are embedded into the genes of every human and every complex animal who ever lived.
Unfortunately, since nature's plan for guiding creatures toward survival and reproduction is a system dependent on what feels good, the door is wide open for perceptual errors, errors that can leave creatures ensnared in traps. But before we reveal the dangerous workings of these traps in the next chapter, let's look at a situation where the motivational triad works exactly as nature intended.
Amale gray shrike, a desert bird, has the reproduction of his genes as his purpose of life. All the features of his being are components of this plan. He, of course, knows nothing of this. What he does know is that he wants pleasure. And one of the most rewarding activities available to him is sexual behavior. It feels good. Therefore, logically, he should get as much of it as he can.
But alas, life isn't that simple. In order to engage in sexual behavior, he needs to attract a willing female. And, if this isn't complicated enough, the problem gets worse. He has competition. Apparently, females are going to inspect him carefully before they mate. And he might not make the grade. To have a chance, he has to do something that appeals to the females. If not, no sexual pleasure will be forthcoming.
The male gray shrike gets female attention by, of all things, gathering "stuff." The stuff might be edible prey, such as snails, or useful objects, such as feathers or pieces of cloth. He will impale these objects on thorns within his territory, in order to advertise how good he is at getting stuff. And it isn't enough to just gather some stuff and present it. He has to gather more than some other male gray shrikes, or no sexual pleasures will be forthcoming. It turns out that the females compare the amount of each male's collection, and then go for the guys with the most.2
In order to pursue pleasure, the gray shrike has to make choices and take risks. He has to fly around, gathering up stuff, and take it back to his territory. In doing so, he risks pain or worse—he might expose himself to a predator and possibly forfeit his life. And to conserve energy he must be efficient. He must make good use of his forays, because if he is inefficient, he will lose out to competitors.
Throughout the springtime, he hunts and gathers. He may venture into another male's territory and risk a dangerous fight, if the other shrike has a territory rich in stuff. In the end, he hopes to be rewarded with what seems to be the point of it all—which is to feel good, very good, with the intense pleasure of sexual activity.
Components Work Together The three components of the motivational triad work together in order to encourage the shrike's behavior toward a particular goal. He seeks pleasure, avoids pain, and attempts to conserve his energies as much as possible. Our male gray shrike may not be "conscious" at the level of a human being, but he is plenty conscious enough to follow the demands of the plan. He wants to feel as good as possible, as much of the time as possible, just the way he was designed.
These three forces are embedded into the design of all animals. They are universal precisely because they encourage behaviors that are associated with survival and reproduction. A bird with neural circuits that did not reward sexual activity with pleasure, for example, would not leave many offspring. Such a creature's genes would soon disappear from nature's contest.
Why does the shark eat? He eats in order to experience the pleasure of eating, and to avoid the pain of hunger. And he will eat as efficiently as possible—paying close attention to disturbances in the water that indicate that a prey fish might be injured. Why spend the energy hunting or fighting a healthy fish, when an injured one will do? His pleasure-seeking, pain-avoidance, energy-conservation machinery—his motivational triad—encourages him to hunt as efficiently as possible. The plan has designed him to attempt to feel as good as possible, as much of the time as possible. And that is why he does what he does.
Why does the gazelle run from the cheetah? For a motivational triad reason: to avoid a painful death. If he succeeds, he may live to experience future pleasures, such as eating and mating. All of these behaviors are merely the handmaidens of the purpose behind it all—the reproduction of his genes. This fact is one of the most counterintuitive discoveries in modern science. Dawkins writes, "This is a truth that still fills me with astonishment. Though I have known it for many years, I never seem fully used to it."3
Both the physical features and the psychological and behavioral characteristics of all creatures came from somewhere, and that "somewhere" is their ancestral history. The natural desire to engage in behaviors that cause pleasure and help to avoid pain is imprinted in neural circuitry, developed over generations through modifications in the genetic code.
The thoughtful reader might wonder if there isn't more to this story, more to motivation than seeking pleasure, avoiding pain, and conserving energy. And indeed there is more. The motivational triad comprises the major forces that influence behavior. But, integrated with the motivational triad are additional mechanisms that create other feelings, including the moods of happiness, perhaps the most important experiences of our lives.
Think back, for a moment, to the life of our male gray shrike. We said that he "hopes to be rewarded" with sexual activity, which is "the point of it all." But, does he really hope? We think not. While sexual activity will provide him with an unmistakable reward for his successful stuff-gathering behavior, we seriously doubt that this bird actually thinks about any of his potential mates or mating behavior. So why on earth does he fly around all springtime, risking life and limb, for some female that he can't even imagine?
The usual answer is, simply, "instinct." But this answer, though superficially correct, misses the critical point. The important question is: How do his instincts motivate him to expend his energy, and risk lethal pain, for some theoretical future pleasure? How does his motivational system manage to organize him to act as if he is thinking ahead?
This problem is not unique to the gray shrike. Very often, in both human and animal life, the rewards of pleasure are not immediate. Pleasure requires work, effort, skill development, and risky competition. Why bother, particularly if you can't even be sure that your search for pleasure is on the right track? Sometimes the path to pleasure can be a long and winding road. What possible method of inducement is there to keep creatures paying the price?
The answer to this question is both fascinating and monumental. Only very recently, scientists have begun to see that nature invented a secondary inducement system, a system of rewards and punishments very similar to pleasure and pain. We call these inducements moods, and they come in two basic types—happiness and unhappiness. These mood systems work in conjunction with the pleasure-seeking and pain-avoidance systems to encourage effective behavior. Here is how this system works.
Suppose that you live in a county with rivers, giant oak trees, caves, and mountains. There are also houses, roads, office buildings, churches, and old abandoned cabins. Imagine that during one lovely springtime, a local newspaper decides to organize a treasure hunt in order to increase circulation. The paper donates this "treasure" and arranges for it to be buried in a secret location somewhere in the county.
At first, the notice creates a stir, and some excitement. The treasure's value is reported to be quite large, and many people join the hunt. However, as the days pass, the newspaper only reports that "the treasure is still buried out there." No other information is offered.
How much excitement do you suppose exists in the town after a few weeks of these reports? Perhaps not much, because despite the treasure's value, no feedback system exists to let people seeking the treasure know whether they are getting closer to their goal. Soon there is little enthusiasm and no treasure-seeking activity. However, as spring turns into summer, the newspaper finally decides to publish clues.
The excitement level is once again considerable. Readers are informed that the treasure is buried near a very large oak tree, within sight of a river. Within hours of this announcement, scores are scouring the county with shovels in hand. But it is soon determined that there are hundreds of such locations, and many participants are quickly discouraged. Others are not, and they dig hole after hole, losing their enthusiasm more slowly.
Then another clue is released; the tree in question is within a mile of an abandoned cabin. Once again the news motivates further effort. Some hunters are excited, believing they may now know where to search. Others are temporarily depressed, as their hunches about where the treasure was buried have been disconfirmed.
Then one day, a team of treasure-hunters realizes that they are almost certainly looking at THE tree. The treasure is surely there. The digging begins in earnest. A shovel hits a wooden chest and the excitement level is extraordinary. As they open the box, the treasure is revealed. A moment of ecstasy has arrived.
In human and animal life, the primary goals are the pursuit of pleasure, the avoidance of pain, and the conservation of energy. However, motivation cannot be sustained by these inducements alone. Nature needs an additional and related system, a set of signals to let pleasure-seeking animals know whether they are on the right path, the path to survival and reproduction. Those signals are the moods of happiness and unhappiness, and they work like the clues in a treasure hunt.
Think once again of our gray shrike. Each time that he gathered some "stuff" and stuck it on a thorn in his territory, he did not pause and say to himself, "I'm getting closer to winning a female." But, something similar to this did happen. That "something" was a feeling, not as powerful and exciting as the sexual ecstasy itself, but something more subtle—an inducement generated by the nervous system to keep him going, to keep him in the treasure hunt.
Surprisingly, these subtle feelings are not caused by mini-jolts of pleasure chemistry. These subtle experiences have their own neurochemistry and mechanics. Certain experiences, such as sexual behavior, result in large releases of pleasure chemicals, such as dopamine, which interact with pleasure systems in the brain. The more subtle feelings associated with steady progress are caused by the release of mood chemicals (such as serotonin) interacting with mood-regulating centers in the brain.4 And although pleasure reactions and mood reactions are partly integrated, they are largely independent. The subtle good feelings that the gray shrike experiences during hour upon hour of steadily productive activity are not pleasure responses. They are positive moods that encourage him to continue his successful behavior.
These encouraging feelings are the moods of happiness, and they are the elements of which terrific lives are made. Our nervous systems can release the powerful, short-lived, intense pleasure responses only in direct response to obtaining "treasure." This is not the case with good moods.
Certain "treasures" cause these releases of pleasure chemistry—most notably food consumption and sexual activity. But we are not designed to eat and have sex all day. Pleasure, at best, is an intense event designed to last for a few precious moments each day. The experience is limited, as the pleasure system quickly becomes exhausted. Pleasure was designed as the unmistakable signal of success for reaching survival and/or reproductive goals. That is why these experiences are such a key part of the plan. That is why we think about them—and how to obtain them—so much of the time.
The moods of happiness have a different purpose. Pleasure responses are the endpoints. The moods of happiness are the subtle reinforcing experiences along the way. Because they must act over much longer periods of time than pleasure, the moods of happiness are not nearly so time-limited. It is quite possible to be happy, for hour upon hour each day, so long as our activities appear to be effective. It is not possible to experience intense pleasure reactions continuously because the neurochemical capabilities for producing pleasure are very limited.
What is happiness? Happiness is the feeling that results from the activation of positive mood mechanisms. It is a possibility of your every waking moment, but it can never be the experience of every moment. It is an experience with a specific biological purpose, that of performing moment-by-moment feedback and guidance that tells you whether or not you are making progress toward pleasure opportunities (or effective pain avoidance). Happiness is the result of a feedback system that is the most important component of life satisfaction. It is the reason for the long-term diligence of the male gray shrike. Animals, like people, experience the moods of happiness when making progress toward worthwhile goals.
Happiness is not a final destination. It is not a place you can find, and then stay forever. It is the temporary and repeatable consequence of a process and comprises a diverse set of mood states that signal that we are on the right track. These experiences include productive satisfaction, pride, romantic moods, the enjoyment of friendships, and feelings of security and of relief.
The moods of happiness, together with moments of pleasure, make up the best that life has to offer. The discovery of their purpose, finally coming to light after centuries of speculation, is perhaps the most important achievement of our time.5 It is vital that we have achieved this understanding, as the foundations of the good life—health and happiness—are under assault today as never before. They are under assault from the counterproductive byproducts of human ingenuity, through a deceptive process that we call "the pleasure trap."
The biological purpose of life is survival and reproduction. Nature has created three incentives for us to fulfill this purpose: (1) the pursuit of pleasure, (2) the avoidance of pain, and (3) the conservation of energy. We call these three incentives "The Motivational Triad."