Positive Psychology and Hedonics
Aiyanna Sezak-Blatt

Hedonics, the please system, and positive psychology was the focus of his week’s reading. From careful distinctions between ‘liking’ and ‘wanting’, to the more general studies of positive psychology, subjectivity and the processes of the unconscious mind were explored in great depth. Through investigating hedonics and the pleasure system in humans, primates, and rats, research has proven that ‘liking’ and ‘wanting’ are different; simple pleasures are indeed not that simply understood. By examining the differences both physically (in the brain) and behaviorally (in actions) ‘liking’ and ‘wanting’ are used to more carefully unravel key questions about the subjective unconscious, unconscious emotions (what they really are) and their influence on behavior.
In the article ‘Praising Rewards’, Kent Berridge and Terry Robinson investigate the difference between wanting and liking. The terms are often seen as two side of the same psychological coin. They are viewed as interchangeable and connected words: if you like something than you should want it; if you want it you should like it, however, this isn’t always the case; each term can be analyses on its own. Berridge and Robinson pull apart the process of wanting verses liking by analyzing the components involved in the reward system. The neurobiology of reward is insightful when confronting pathological issues such as addictive behaviors, drug abuse, obsession, and depression. Their article highlights that wanting and liking involve different components of the reward system. The components of wanting are described as incentive salience (a term coined by Berridge and Robinson) motivation, and goal directed plans, verses liking: explicit hedonic feelings— core hedonic impacts—and their implicit affects.
The difference between the two is more clearly contrasted when looking at dopamine’s effect on the pleasure system. Liking is an objective affective reaction. An example of this provided by Berridge and Robinson is that of the liking of taste; “liking for taste involves activity in a distributed neural network that also has been implicated in drug reward. Microinjections of opiod agonists into the accumben shell causes increased facial ‘liking’ reactions to sweetness [the protrusion of the tongue]” (Berridge and Robinson, 2003). A bitter taste provokes it’s own physical reaction, a gaping, opened mouth. The neurotransmitter dopamine, (when either activated or suppressed) does not affect the expression of liking, however it can enhance the sensation of wanting. In humans, “activation of accumbens-striatal dopaminergic systems by amphetamine” correlates with greater subjective wanting. Dopamine manipulation can elicit an increase in wanting of a particular food or drug reward without affecting the subjective ratings of pleasure or liking. As Berridge states in his second article, ‘Simple Pleasures’, “Dopamine systems seem unable to cause a pleasure gloss. Liking reactions to sweetness persist unchanged and normal, no matter what brain dopamine systems are doing” (Berridge, 2004).
To make a more clear distinction between wanting and liking, Berridge describes a case study where the incentive salience wanting is stimulated without hedonic ‘liking’. This is a case described under ‘False Pleasure Electrodes’, where a female patient was implanted with an electrode that stimulates the pleasure system. This patient claimed that the electrode stimulated a strong desire for liquids; it stimulated erotic feelings (sexual stimulation without an orgasm), and the desire to stimulate the electrode again, and again. When stimulated, she drank “copiously”, recorded hot and cold sensations and levels of high anxiety. She began to stimulate the electrode throughout the day at home often neglecting her own hygiene and social engagements (Berridge, 2004). This case illustrates a desire to self-stimulate even though no desirable or pleasurable sensations were occurring. Berridge showed that this patient experienced the incentive salience of ‘wanting’ (to self-stimulate) without hedonic ‘liking’ of the feeling produced by the stimulus itself. In this case, stimulation became an addiction in and of itself.
From this fascinating distinction, Berridge and his collogue Piotr Winkielman examine the possible effects of unconscious ‘liking’ in our emotional states and in our behavior. In their article, ‘What is an unconscious emotion?’ they argue that subconscious ‘liking’ can influence emotional states and behavioral decisions. Their article describes an experiment in which subliminal images unconsciously changed either the participant’s preferences for an image or their consumption of fruit juice offered throughout the experiment. In this study individuals were shown images of Chinese ideographs followed by subliminal exposures of a happy, neutral, or angry facial expression. There was also a second layer to this experiment, participants were able to pour themselves and consume glasses of sweet juice throughout the experiment. Their finding showed that subliminal facial stimuli significantly affected the participants. Negative subliminal images resulted in less beverage consumption, and/or affected the participant’s conscious emotional states. Berridge and Winkielman demonstrated that both positive affect as well as negative affect could unconsciously influence the behavior and/or emotional state of individual participants.
This study gives a new meaning to the notion of unconscious emotional experiences, arguing that “In normal adults under some conditions, core ‘liking’ reactions may influence a person’s consumption behavior later, without a person being able to report subjective awareness of the affective reaction at the moment it was caused. When the brain generates an affective response of which the mind is unaware, as we have described here, there exists a truly unconscious emotion” (Berridge and Winkielman, 2003). The subtle distinctions made in these articles (liking verses wanting, and the influence of unconscious stimuli on emotion) reiterate the role that feelings play in our behavioral preferences and decisions. Simple feelings are actually very complex, and our conscious decisions can be influenced by truly unconscious preferences. The subjective assessment of our emotional states is a conscious process that can be affected by unconsciously perceived stimuli.
The next issue that this week’s reading focused on was that of subjective experience and subjective emotional processing. Positive psychology is a field that focuses on channeling individual strength and enhancing the feeling of worth and happiness. The scope of the two articles focusing on positive emotions, ‘Positive Psychology: An Introduction’ and Positive Psychology Progress: Empirical Validation of Interviews’ were large: suggesting that individual changes and increased happiness on an individual level could change the collective state of our future as a nation. However large the scope, they might be right. Positive psychology looks to the average, ‘normal’ person with the intention of bettering one’s emotional well-being. One of the most fascinating aspects of these articles was their definition of subjective. Martin Seligman, Nansook Park, and Christopher Peterson argue that the individual defines a subjective emotion. Happiness, for example, is what one defines it as. A central issue in this work is how a person’s “values and goals mediate between external events and the quality of experience.” Positive psychologists look to enhance one’s ability to cope, to find joy, and ultimately to mediate and define their own happiness.
These articles argue that an individual can consciously shape their sense of well-being, and with time, enhance their own sense of fulfillment. Because subjectivity exists on an individual level, I found these article practically interesting. They focus not on what’s gone wrong, but what can be strengthened in everyone.
Another interesting point in Seligman, Park, and Peterson’s work, was that of optimism. They suggest that an optimistic attitude towards daily activities and even in severe illnesses such as AIDS, can lead to better health, and even slow the symptoms of disease. Though the articles were a bit on the idealistic side, they prove a significant point: individuals can, to some extent, cognitively transform their subjective states, and can consciously work to enhance well-being.
Our emotional states are complex, they can be influenced by unconsciously perceived stimuli, and they can are subjectively represented. This week’s reading emphasized that the feeling brain has many layers, including processes that we are not aware of and processes that are conscious and cognitively processed. Emotions are three dimensional, and all of these factors influence even the most basic of feelings.