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Progress in Brain Research 2018Empirical aesthetics in general, and neuroaesthetics in particular, have been very much influenced by Berlyne's psychobiological program. For him, aesthetic appreciation...
Empirical aesthetics in general, and neuroaesthetics in particular, have been very much influenced by Berlyne's psychobiological program. For him, aesthetic appreciation involved the brain's reward and aversion systems. From this point of view, art constitutes a set of potentially rewarding stimuli. Research has certainly made great advances in understanding how the process of artistic valuation takes places, and which brain circuits are involved in generating the pleasure we obtain from artistic practices, performances, and works. But it also suggests that pleasure is not the only effect of the arts. The evidence rather suggests that the arts have other cognitive and emotional effects which are closely related to human psychobiological health and well-being. These are: (1) attentional focus and flow, (2) affective experience, (3) emotion through imagery, (4) interpersonal communication, (5) self-intimation, and (6) social bonding. These effects are beneficial and contribute to the individual's biopsychological health and well-being. The fact that artistic practice has these effects helps explain why the arts are so important to human life, and why they developed in the first place, i.e., as ways to foster these effects. Therefore, a biopsychological science of the arts is emerging, according to which the arts can be conceptualized as an important system of external self-regulation, as a set of activities that contribute to our homeostasis and well-being.
Topics: Art; Brain; Esthetics; Humans; Neurosciences; Pleasure
PubMed: 29779754
DOI: 10.1016/S0079-6123(18)30032-3 -
British Dental Journal May 2020
Topics: Anxiety; Humans; Music; Oral Surgical Procedures; Pilot Projects; Pleasure
PubMed: 32444723
DOI: 10.1038/s41415-020-1683-7 -
Current Opinion in Neurobiology Apr 2022Social touch-the affiliative skin-to-skin contact between individuals-can rapidly evoke emotions of comfort, pleasure, or calm, and is essential for mental and physical... (Review)
Review
Social touch-the affiliative skin-to-skin contact between individuals-can rapidly evoke emotions of comfort, pleasure, or calm, and is essential for mental and physical well-being. Physical isolation from social support can be devastating. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we observed a global increase in suicidal ideation, anxiety, domestic violence, and worsening of pre-existing physical conditions, alerting society to our need to understand the neurobiology of social touch and how it promotes normal health. Gaining a mechanistic understanding of how sensory neuron stimulation induces pleasure, calm, and analgesia may reveal untapped therapeutic targets in the periphery for treatment of anxiety and depression, as well as social disorders and traumas in which social touch becomes aversive. Bridging the gap between stimulation in the skin and positive affect in the brain-especially during naturally occurring social touch behaviors-remains a challenge to the field. However, with advances in mouse genetics, behavioral quantification, and brain imaging approaches to measure neuronal firing and neurochemical release, completing this mechanistic picture may be on the horizon. Here, we summarize some exciting new findings about social touch in mammals, emphasizing both the peripheral and central nervous systems, with attempts to bridge the gap between external stimulation and internal representations in the brain.
Topics: Animals; Brain; Humans; Mice; Pleasure; Social Behavior; Touch
PubMed: 35453001
DOI: 10.1016/j.conb.2022.102527 -
Emotion (Washington, D.C.) Aug 2021When left to their own devices, people could choose to enjoy their own thoughts. But recent work suggests they do not. When given the freedom, people do not...
When left to their own devices, people could choose to enjoy their own thoughts. But recent work suggests they do not. When given the freedom, people do not spontaneously choose to think for pleasure, and when directed to do so, struggle to concentrate successfully. Moreover, people find it somewhat boring and much less enjoyable than other solitary activities. One reason for this is that people may not know how to think for pleasure. Specifically, they may not know what to think about to make this both a meaningful and pleasant experience. We tested this prediction in two preregistered studies, by providing specific examples of meaningful topics (Study 1) or instructing participants to think "meaningful" thoughts (Study 2). Although providing specific examples of meaningful topics boosted how meaningful and enjoyable people found thinking for pleasure (Study 1), asking people to think "meaningful" thoughts (as compared with pleasurable ones) did not, because some of the meaningful topics people thought about were negative (Study 2). In order for thinking for pleasure to be pleasurable, people need to focus on topics that are both meaningful and positive. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
Topics: Emotions; Humans; Pleasure
PubMed: 33661664
DOI: 10.1037/emo0000941 -
Current Drug Abuse Reviews 2016People commonly use psychoactive substances to increase physical and psychological pleasure. Neuroadaptations in the brain's reward system coupled with changes in social... (Review)
Review
BACKGROUND
People commonly use psychoactive substances to increase physical and psychological pleasure. Neuroadaptations in the brain's reward system coupled with changes in social functioning and networking resulting from chronic substance use impede the ability to derive pleasure from non-substance related activities.
OBJECTIVE
We elucidate and validate the hypothesis that treatments for substance use disorders would potentially have a stronger and broader impact by helping recipients to experience pleasure as part of an expansive focus of increasing adaptive functioning, well-being, and personal fulfillment and actualization.
METHOD
We have organized and integrated relatively sparse and disparate theory and research to describe a multi-stage model linking pleasure and substance use. We review research on pleasure in the context of treatment for substance use, and describe future research directions.
RESULTS
Our model integrates several independent research programs with prominent theories and models of substance dependence that together provide evidence that pleasure, or lack thereof, is a risk or protective factor for initiating, escalating and maintaining substance use and substance use disorders. Pleasure is an overlooked but potentially high-yield target of existing evidence-based treatments.
CONCLUSION
Research is needed to investigate the relation between pleasure and substance use, and existing and newly developed treatments that have the potential to increase pleasure. By increasing pleasure such treatments have the potential to help recipients to live fuller and richer lives. Integration of pleasure into existing treatments has compelling transdiagnostic implications for individuals at any point along a substance use severity continuum.
Topics: Adaptation, Physiological; Brain; Evidence-Based Practice; Humans; Models, Psychological; Pleasure; Psychotropic Drugs; Research Design; Reward; Substance-Related Disorders
PubMed: 28290252
DOI: 10.2174/1874473710666170308163310 -
Annals of the New York Academy of... Nov 2016The pursuit of happiness is enshrined in the founding document of our nation as a fundamental and inalienable right. Yet nowhere is the method of this pursuit clearly... (Review)
Review
The pursuit of happiness is enshrined in the founding document of our nation as a fundamental and inalienable right. Yet nowhere is the method of this pursuit clearly defined. What, exactly, does it mean to be happy, and how can such happiness be sustained over the long term? Can happiness be accurately gauged or measured? How does the paradoxical relationship between happiness and pleasure shape our quest to lead the good life? And what does modern science have to tell us about this universal yet elusive pursuit? Steve Paulson, executive producer and host of To the Best of Our Knowledge, moderated a discussion that included attorney and author Kim Azzarelli, historian Darrin McMahon, and social psychologist Barry Schwartz, who joined forces to share their research and insight on happiness, pleasure, and the coveted good life.
Topics: Happiness; Humans; Interpersonal Relations; Pleasure; Problem Solving; Radio
PubMed: 27258656
DOI: 10.1111/nyas.13068 -
International Journal of Environmental... Mar 2023Many people listen to music that conveys challenging emotions such as sadness and anger, despite the commonly assumed purpose of media being to elicit pleasure. We...
Many people listen to music that conveys challenging emotions such as sadness and anger, despite the commonly assumed purpose of media being to elicit pleasure. We propose that eudaimonic motivation, the desire to engage with aesthetic experiences to be challenged and facilitate meaningful experiences, can explain why people listen to music containing such emotions. However, it is unknown whether music containing violent themes can facilitate such meaningful experiences. In this investigation, three studies were conducted to determine the implications of eudaimonic and hedonic (pleasure-seeking) motivations for fans of music with violent themes. In Study 1, we developed and tested a new scale and showed that fans exhibit high levels of both types of motivation. Study 2 further validated the new scale and provided evidence that the two types of motivations are associated with different affective outcomes. Study 3 revealed that fans of violently themed music exhibited higher levels of eudaimonic motivation and lower levels of hedonic motivation than fans of non-violently themed music. Taken together, the findings support the notion that fans of music with violent themes are driven to engage with this music to be challenged and to pursue meaning, as well as to experience pleasure. Implications for fans' well-being and future applications of the new measure are discussed.
Topics: Humans; Pleasure; Motivation; Music; Emotions; Anger
PubMed: 36982066
DOI: 10.3390/ijerph20065157 -
The Behavioral and Brain Sciences Jan 2017The Roman poet Horace said poetry gives pleasure and instructs. A more informative theory is that poetry and art, in general, are less about pleasure than about...
The Roman poet Horace said poetry gives pleasure and instructs. A more informative theory is that poetry and art, in general, are less about pleasure than about exploration of emotions. Literary authors concentrate on negative emotions, seemingly to try and understand them. In two studies, reading literary art enabled the transformation of selfhood, not by being instructed but by people changing in their own ways.
Topics: Art; Emotions; Pleasure; Reading
PubMed: 29342798
DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X17001807 -
The International Journal on Drug Policy Nov 2017Within the field of drug and alcohol studies, researchers think about pleasure or against it; we analyse, consider, investigate, invoke or ignore it. The philosophically... (Review)
Review
Within the field of drug and alcohol studies, researchers think about pleasure or against it; we analyse, consider, investigate, invoke or ignore it. The philosophically inclined may think of pleasure or write on it, but in each of these scenarios pleasure is kept at an arm's length while the researcher appears to remain unmoved - detached observers, objective scientists, conceptual experts, program directors, sharp critics, policy advocates - sober judges whose sovereignty is secured by the formal conventions of positivist research, established theory, institutional authority and/or disciplinary knowledge. This paper asks what happens when pleasure is allowed to emerge as a constitutive element in the relations of drug and alcohol research. What happens when we conceive our work as thinking with pleasure, rather than simply researching pleasure or thinking about it? I return to the later work of Foucault, reading it alongside conceptions of the experiment drawn from Science and Technology Studies, arguing that both the pleasures of drug consumption and drug research might be conceived more generatively as mutually implicated in events.
Topics: Humans; Pleasure; Research; Substance-Related Disorders
PubMed: 28886888
DOI: 10.1016/j.drugpo.2017.07.019 -
Annual Review of Psychology Jan 2018We review the phenomenon of hedonic decline, whereby repeated exposure to a stimulus typically reduces the hedonic response (e.g., enjoyment). We first discuss the... (Review)
Review
We review the phenomenon of hedonic decline, whereby repeated exposure to a stimulus typically reduces the hedonic response (e.g., enjoyment). We first discuss the typical trajectory of hedonic decline and the common research paradigms used to study it. We next discuss the most popular theories regarding general mechanisms widely believed to underlie hedonic decline. We then propose a taxonomy to organize these various general theories and to incorporate more recent work on top-down, self-reflective theories. This taxonomy identifies three general classes of antecedents to hedonic decline: physiological feedback, perceptual changes, and self-reflection. For each class, we review the supporting evidence for specifically identified antecedents and recent developments on how each antecedent influences hedonic decline. Our review focuses especially on more recent work in the growing area of self-reflection.
Topics: Humans; Perception; Pleasure; Self Concept
PubMed: 28854001
DOI: 10.1146/annurev-psych-122216-011542