Much has been made of the power of habit. We’re encouraged to make healthy choices our default and to understand the way that the brain sets certain tasks, such as our morning commute, on autopilot to improve our efficiency.
But what about our more intentional, conscious day-to-day choices? The decisions we ponder—over seconds or lengthy deliberation—rely in part on the value system, which weighs in on the subjective evaluations we make, tipping the scales toward one choice over another. “When we understand how the value system works, we can recognize many possible paths to our goals,” says Emily Falk, a neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania and author of What We Value.
As the book explores, many people feel frustrated when they find themselves making choices that run counter to their big-picture goals—things like exercising more, visiting older relatives or cutting back screen time. Falk introduces readers to the brain systems that calculate our priorities in the moment and the strategies for weighting those decisions toward what matters most to each person. In the process, she offers a compassionate framework for recognizing how we make choices and why change can be so challenging.
On supporting science journalism
If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
Scientific American spoke with Falk about how the brain sifts through options and how reflecting on our priorities can help align our behaviors with long-term aims.
[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]
So how does the brain assign value?
When we’re making a decision, the brain first identifies the different things that we might be choosing between.Then the brain’s valuation system takes input from many other systems, including the ones that help us process emotions, think about ourselves, and help us understand other people’s thoughts and feelings.
It integrates that information and assigns a subjective value to each option. Then we choose the one that we expect will be most rewarding. Finally, after we make the choice, the brain keeps track of how things went to see whether something we thought would be rewarding was as good as we predicted.
Ultimately, that valuation system provides a final common pathway in arriving at our subjective evaluations across very different things—whether relationship partners, food choices or financial decisions.
As just one example of factors that influence these value calculations, in January my colleagues and I published findings that showed people are more likely to share news stories with others when they reflect on why that article is relevant to themselves and their social worlds. And we’ve seen, in this and in past research, how that desire to share news relates to activity in the brain’s self-reference and social cognition systems.
How might understanding these systems change the way people think about their choices or behavior?
We know that one important input for the value system is self-relevance, or how much something feels psychologically meaningful or close to oneself. And we tend to confound self and value. Neuroscientific research shows a deep intertwining of these self and values systems.
Sometimes that is good in terms of maintaining a coherent sense of self and a positive sense of self. The problem is that we may hold on to notions of what we did and who we are beyond the point when they are useful.
As another example, people prefer rewards that are close in time or instantly gratifying. Understanding how the brain works also highlights how other kinds of psychological [closeness or] distance work in a similar way.
Scientists have studied how the medial prefrontal cortex, which is important to both the value and self-relevance systems, handles multiple kinds of psychological distance in a similar way. For instance, people are more motivated to choose something when you expect the rewards will come sooner or involve something geographically close or people who feel socially close. But you can make rewards feel psychologically closer. Scientists have done that by asking people to imagine otherwise distant scenarios in concrete ways. You can vividly imagine how your future self will spend money in retirement as an incentive to save now or envision the transformative consequences for a specific child of donating to UNICEF to increase your giving.
In your research, you’ve looked at another strategy, what psychologists call values affirmation, and found it can help people make better decisions for themselves in the long term. Can you explain more?
Lots of research shows that when we are reminded of the things that are most important to us—“capital-V” values such as kindness or friendship and family—we are more open to changing our behaviors.
For example, in studies that our team has run, sedentary people are more likely to become physically active after being asked to affirm their values by identifying the most important ones on a list and then envisioning themselves in various scenarios that tap into those values. So if you choose friends and family, we might ask you to imagine a time in the future when you connect with a family member, and they help you with a challenge. When we look at brain activity, we see that when thinking about what matters most, core parts of the value and self-relevance systems become active.
We also find people are less defensive and more open to change after reflecting on their most important values. So if we have people do this type of values affirmation before we give them messages intended to coach them toward healthier choices—such as reminders to exercise—we see that the people who affirmed their values show more activity in the value and self-relevance systems in the brain than others who did not do that affirmation. And then when we follow our participants over the next month—sending out more value-reflection prompts and reminders to be active—the ones who showed that greater brain activation were ultimately less sedentary.
Why would thinking about family and friends change someone’s inclination to exercise?
In many value affirmation studies, the value does not have an obvious connection to the behavior. Instead the idea is that thinking about what really matters to you helps you zoom out and consider the big picture. Affirming your values—by writing about what you care about most, choosing values from a list or imagining situations that involve those values—can ground you.
In addition, self-transcendent values, which connect you to something outside of yourself, such as friends and family or spirituality, are more effective than purely self-focused values at helping people make changes. People who connect with those self-transcendent values on a regular basis, and people who have a stronger sense of purpose, get health and well-being benefits that don’t accrue when we focus on more self-focused values such as personal money, fame and power.
All of this suggests that people who keep their big-picture ideas and goals top of mind—for example, through regular reminders of their big-picture values—gain some advantages when it comes to decision-making, right?
Yes. Feeling purposeful means having a clear picture of what you’re trying to do and why. It can be like a North Star that helps us think about the path from where we are now to where we want to be.
But it isn’t just that some people are purposeful and others are not. People’s sense of purpose fluctuates, on a day-to-day basis, around whatever their baseline is. This is helpful to keep in mind because it highlights that we can do things that might change how purposeful we feel on a given day and what benefits we get as a result. For example, day-to-day choices and physical health relate to purpose. Exercise, sleep, mood, connecting with other people and sense of purpose relate to one another in a web of wellness. When we actively choose to prioritize one of these, we can get benefits in lots of other areas for free.
Are you a scientist who specializes in neuroscience, cognitive science or psychology? And have you read a recent peer-reviewed paper that you would like to write about for Mind Matters? Please send suggestions to Scientific American’s Mind Matters editor Daisy Yuhas dyuhas@sciam.com.