Book Review: The Molecule of More by Daniel Lieberman & Michael Long
Book Review: The Molecule of More by Daniel Lieberman & Michael Long
And Its Impact on Our Lives & Politics
Title: The Molecule of More. How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity―and Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race
Author: Daniel Z. Lieberman, Michael E. Long
Year: 2018
In Short
Dopamine makes us want more, it focuses on the future; its domain is the extrapersonal i.e. what is beyond our reach; it is not the pleasure molecule, but the molecule of unexpected rewards; dopamine's antidotes are the 'Here & Now molecules' such as serotonin, oxytocin, endorphins focus on the present, the peripersonal space i.e. everything that is within our reach
Dopamine supports creativity (in the extreme: madness)
Dopamine also influences political preferences: it is linked with progressive ideology (who want to change the world), while conservatives tend to show more H&N molecules
There are ways to get dopamine and H&N molecules in just the right balance to strive for more, while enjoying the now, e.g. striving to master a subject, taking a break in nature, or doing something creative/practical
Summary
‘Here & Now’ versus ‘More’
Our brain separates the external world into two spheres: the peripersonal is within my reach, something I can control, the here and now; the extrapersonal is everything else. In the former, a range of chemicals (the 'Here& Now hormones') are at play, in the latter, it's dopamine that dominates.
"The mountain itself exists. But the imagined experience of being on it is impossible to achieve. The reality is that most of the time you're on a mountain you can't even tell. Typically you're surrounded by trees, and that's all you see. Occasionally you might come to a scenic overlook in which you can see for miles over the valley. But as you look, it's the far-away valley that's full of promise and beauty, not the mountain you're standing on. Glamour creates desires that cannot be fulfilled because they are desires for things that exist only in the imagination. Whether it's an airplane in the sky, a movie star in Hollywood, or a distant mountain, only things that are out of reach can be glamorous; only things that are unreal. Glamour is a lie." p. 11
The Here & Now hormones - serotonin, oxytocin, endorphins, endocannabinoids - are antidotes to dopamine. Although they can work together sometimes, usually high levels of one mean low levels of the other.
Dopamine is not the pleasure molecule, it's not about rewards but unexpected rewards: reward prediction error, ie reward minus expected reward.
The natural dopamine system helps focus on the new, and unexpected to help us out in the future; once we experience a dopamine hit for something unexpected, we won't get that same hit of dopamine for something in the future. In this way, dopamine is an efficient system that regulates itself. Drugs shortcut this system and create an artificial dopamine hit that is endless.
Cold violence (planned, without emotion) is driven by dopamine, whereas violence out of passion/emotion is not, it supersedes dopamine's cautious goal-directed calculation.
Motivational enhancement therapy helps the patient talk about positive habits while ignoring/sidestepping negative habits.
Cognitive behavioral therapy uses control dopamine's capacity to plan to hold in check desire dopamine: by planning for and managing/eliminating cues that trigger negative behavior.
Dopamine gives us:
"the ability to think long term, make plans, and use abstract concepts such as math, reason, and logic. Looking into the longer-term future also gives us the tenacity we need to overcome challenges and accomplish things that take a long time, things like getting an education or flying to the moon. It also gives us the ability to tame the hedonistic urges of the desire circuit, suppressing immediate gratification to achieve something better." (p. 105)
Dopaminergic personality types focus on future rewards at the expense of appreciating the present. Three types exist:
Pleasure seekers: never gets enough, as soon as they have it, they want the next thing
Detached planner: future-oriented, long-term; more abstract forms of gratification compared to the pleasure seeker
Genius: obsession with the unknown/undiscovered, making the world a better place while seeming indifferent to people around them
Dopamine supports creativity
But too much of it comes at the risk of madness:
"Dopamine gives us the power to create. It allows us to imagine the unreal and connect the seemingly unrelated. It allows us to build mental models of the world that transcend mere physical description, moving beyond sensory impressions to uncover the deeper meaning of what we experience. Then, like a child knocking over a tower of blocks, dopamine demolishes its own models so that we can start fresh and find new meaning in what was once familiar. But that power comes at a cost. The hyperactive dopamine systems of creative geniuses put them at risk of mental illness. Sometimes the world of the unreal breaks through its natural bounds, creating paranoia, delusions, and the feverish excitement of manic behavior. In addition, heightened dopaminergic activity may overwhelm H&N systems, hampering one's ability to form human relationships and navigate the day-to-day world of reality." (p. 139)
Dopamine & Politics
A study in American Journal of Political Science found that conservatives tend to be altruistic, empathic, and conventional, whereas liberals tend to be manipulative, tough-minded, and practical. The latter characteristics are associated with high dopamine.
Liberals "use dopamine to imagine a world far better than the one we live in today. Progressivism is an arrow pointing forward." (p. 148)
There is a "genetic disposition to a dopaminergic personality and a liberal ideology" (p. 154). People with the gene that codes for the D4 dopamine receptor and expressed in the variant 7R are novelty-seeking and are more likely to adhere to liberal ideology (if they grew up in an environment with different political opinions).
Dopaminergic and H&N personalities have different attitudes toward (helping) humanity at large and individual humans. Albert Einstein, a highly dopaminergic personality, said he cared more about humanity
Conservatives are more loss-averse:
"In a way, loss aversion is simple arithmetic. Gain is about a better future, so only dopamine is involved. The possibility of gain gets a +1 from dopamine. It gets zero from H&N, because H&N is only concerned with the present. Loss is also about the future, so it concerns dopamine, and gets a -1. Loss concerns H&N, too, because it affects things in our possession right now. So H&N gives it a -1. Put them together, and gain = +1, loss = -2, exactly what we see with the brain scans and the wagering experiments." (p. 165)
People can be nudged to be more conservative by exposing them to threat and loss-aversion. People can be nudged to be more liberal by nudging them to imagining something (esp them being invulnerable) and to abstract thinking
How to put dopamine and H&N in balance
Mastery of something creates contentment and an inner locus of control
Maximise reality, ie exposure to sensory data: it's a H&N activity that helps with five new/rich data that dopamine needs for for planning
Taking a break in nature has been shown to stimulate both the sub-cortical arousal (desire dopamine) as well as cortical attention control (control dopamine)
Don't multitask. It creates mistakes and stress
Don't live in the future; a study of people who were contacted at random intervals and asked what they were doing, found that "a human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind" (p. 219)
Doing something creative, art or cooking or sport