How Rewards Can Create Lasting Goal-Directed Behavior

This piece, by Onno Berkan, was published on 12/10/24. The original text, by Ballard et al., was published by the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience on 12/01/24 (a week ago!).

This UC Berkeley study investigated how rewards influence our ability to learn and follow rules and whether these effects persist even after rewards are no longer available. The study aimed to understand if rewards can create "goal habits"—persistent patterns in selecting and executing goals.

Researchers found that when people were rewarded for following specific rules, they became better at executing those rules. Pavlov’s dog. Participants showed higher accuracy and faster response times for rules associated with higher rewards.

Importantly, these performance improvements didn't disappear when the rewards were removed. People continued to perform better at the previously rewarded rules even during a test phase where no more rewards were available. This suggests that reward reinforcement changes how we process and execute rules.

One interesting finding was that rewards made people better at following certain rules but didn't make them less flexible in switching to competing rules. The researchers even found that participants were faster at switching to high-reward rules compared to switching between low-reward rules, with switching away from high-reward rules remaining fast. This challenges the idea that habits always lead to inflexible behavior.

Regarding real-life applicability, the researchers note that goals in real life are more complex and can involve multiple strategies (like choosing between swimming, running, or weight training for exercise). Both concrete rewards (like money) and abstract rewards (like achieving goals) can influence our cognitive habits.

The researchers acknowledge that while they observed persistent effects of reward, the study wasn't designed to test truly long-lasting habits. They suggest that forming long-term habits likely involves additional factors, including stress, social motivation, and extended learning periods.

The study represents a significant step forward in understanding how rewards can create lasting changes in our behavior, particularly in how we select and pursue goals.

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