Once More, with Feeling! Reply to Ainslie
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LETTER
Once More, with Feeling! Reply to Ainslie Marc Lewis
Received: 7 January 2017 / Accepted: 28 February 2017 / Published online: 6 May 2017 # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2017
Abstract Ainslie’s contribution offers a useful refinement of his powerful model of intertemporal bargaining. However, he focuses mostly on the cognitive mechanisms of choice. I suggest that these interact with emotional, personality, and developmental dynamics that cannot be ignored, either psychologically or neurally. Keywords Ainslie’s contribution . Extending Bintertemporal bargaining^ . Importance of emotional dynamics . Importance of developmental dynamics . Personality features . Desire and dopamine . Character of internal dialogue . Cooperation vs. defiance
Ainslie's classic book, Breakdown of Will [1], may have influenced my thinking about addiction more than anything else. The critical role of delay discounting has been recognized by others who study addiction and impulsive behavior. But Ainslie's emphasis on the hyperbolic shape of the discounting curve, rising suddenly in proximity to immediate rewards, seems to clinch the insidious nature of addiction most persuasively. My emphasis on "now appeal" in The Biology of Desire [2] was inspired by Ainslie's account of hyperbolic discounting. I saw the addict's challenge as breaking away from the lure of a recurring "now" by expanding the horizons of temporal awareness, into the past as well as the future. And in this M. Lewis (*) Developmental Psychology, University of Toronto, 27 King’s College Cir, Toronto, ON M5S, Canada e-mail: [email protected]
thinking I was guided by Ainslie's most profound contribution to understanding the inner world of addiction: the idea of intertemporal bargaining. Both reading the record of my own thoughts during my years of addiction, and when listening to others currently struggling to quit, I find that the idea of intertemporal bargaining (or intertemporal negotiation) captures the back-and-forth internal debate – should I or not? – better than any other construct. In his commentary, Ainslie [3] makes it clear that he and I [4] agree on the fundamental cognitive mechanisms that embed the addictive habit as well as those that help people move beyond addiction. He also introduces refinements that further extend his model of intertemporal bargaining. He notes the value of "bundling" future reward expectations to augment their reach, the metacognitive processes that can further increase the appeal of delayed rewards, the derivation of "personal rules" and "good stories" to shore up the habit strength of such choices and increase the attraction of future payoffs, and the iterative, self-perpetuating nature of both "good" and "bad" choices. For me, these elaborations add useful layers of detail and precision to a model that has already proved invaluable. However, Ainslie chooses not to focus on the emotional currents, the circular trajectories of self-blame, shame, defiance, and loss that interact with cognitive mechanisms of choice. He
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