Fluctuations in motivation and decision-making
Today, will you socialise after work or stay at home? Will you do exercise or relax and watch tv? How do you decide whether its worth making extra effort? And why is it that some days this is easier than others? Previous research has shown that when deciding whether to do something effortful, people weigh up whether they think the benefits outweight the costs. However, in the real-world people seem to vary a lot in how willing they are to make effort over time. Some days we feel full of energy and motivation, and choose to make more effort whereas other days we lack motivation and choose to avoid effort. We do not have a good scientific understanding of what causes our choices to change like this, mostly because typically studies measure people’s decision making on just one single day. We investigated how people’s motivation changes using a study with smartphone games as people went about their daily life. We sent people notifications asking them to tell us how motivated, happy and tired they felt …