One of the things I like to research most is motivation. What have researchers learned recently about how motivation works? How is it related to learning and to the reward center in our brain? I’m a college professor. So on a more personal note, I’m trying to figure one specific thing out. How do I keep my students engaged in an hour and a half long class when I truly believe that the communication concepts I’m teaching can better their lives and society as a whole?
It’s questions like these that led me to a chapter in Frank Rose’s book The Art of Immersion. In it, he covers research studies that help us uncover some important lessons about our brains and motivation. You might be wondering, why are we even talking about this neuroscience stuff on our blog? Well, if we want to be great presenters, we have to know and truly understand how motivation and learning works.
So today we’ll take a look inside our brains. Let’s see what dopamine has to do with motivation and how this knowledge should affect the way we present.
What is Dopamine?
Dopamine is a chemical messenger that transmits signals all over our bodies. From muscles to glands to major organs to receptor sites within the brain, it affects a lot. As with most body functions, we need an appropriate balance to function at an optimal level. Healthy levels of dopamine are connected to our ability to focus, to our productivity and creativity, and to our ability to plan and learn.
Dopamine is sometimes called the pleasure chemical, but as Sarah Sheppard says in her medically reviewed article on the subject, “this is a misnomer, as dopamine doesn’t actually produce pleasure. It does, however, reinforce feelings of pleasure by connecting sensations of pleasure to certain behaviors.” This is an important distinction for our purposes. We want to know how sensations of pleasure are linked to certain behaviors. For the purpose of teaching or presenting, we are trying to figure out how perceived rewards—whether it’s a fascinating story or information we need or want—produces the behavior of listening.
The Motivation Myth
Answer this question: are humans motivated more by consistent rewards, inconsistent rewards, or no rewards at all? Most of us would probably guess consistent rewards, right? Especially those of us who are parents, or teachers, or managers in the workplace. We have generally come to believe that consistency is the way to go. In fact, Rose cites the research of British neuroscientist Paul Howard-Jones who says, “the conventional wisdom is that rewards have to be consistent.” But in the classroom research he conducted, he found students were more motivated to continue learning if they weren’t sure if they would or wouldn’t get an award. Multiple studies have shown that inconsistent rewards are the most effective at producing and sustaining human motivation.
Here’s an example based on Howard-Jones’s research. Say you are in a competition at work to get the most new customer leads via a cold-calling campaign. If every person you pitch to over the phone says yes and becomes a new customer, you come to expect a lead every time. Since you know you can easily obtain new leads, the competition loses its appeal and your motivation decreases. If you make dozens of calls and every person says no, you stop expecting to get any new leads at all which also decreases your motivation to continue with the competition.
However, if some people say yes and some say no, it becomes a game for your brain. You are driven to continue the competition with strong motivation because you aren’t sure when the next “yes” is just around the corner. Rose quotes Wolfram Schultz, another researcher who found that “dopamine neurons respond to primary rewards only when the reward occurs unpredictably . . . by contrast, a fully predicted reward does not elicit a response in dopamine neurons.”
The Hunt
In other words, our brains are tuned in to and driven by the hunt more than the reward. Rose says, “dopamine regulates our expectation of pleasure. Once the anticipated reward becomes commonplace, the dopamine-receptive neurons fail to fire.” That’s why those who have gambling or drug addictions seek out larger wins or need larger doses. The addict doesn’t feel good like he initially did because his brain has come to expect it. We could also point to this research as a probable reason why the so-called “honeymoon phase” of a marriage ends. The dopamine in our brains gradually reduces once we are no longer actively seeking for a mate.
So the hunt is really what drives us. Rose also cites the research of Joseph LeDoux, director of the Center for Neural Science at New York University. LeDoux has studied the dopamine levels of animals who are hunting. He says, “if you measure dopamine while an animal is searching, it’s very high . . . but when they find something and consume it, dopamine doesn’t register. It’s more in the seeking than in the attainment of the goal.”
Presentations that Highlight the Hunt & Increase Motivation
But all of this incredible scientific knowledge, these intimate looks inside our brains, doesn’t amount to much if we can’t apply it. Here’s the lesson for presenters (and for anyone looking to build or maintain motivation): we have to highlight the hunt over the reward. Here are some ways to highlight the hunt in our presentations:
Develop narratives that invite the listener to participate.
First-person point of view video games can be addictive because they highlight the user’s role in creating or controlling what happens. In your presentations, work to give the audience members active roles. Conduct a pre-presentation survey to see what is most important to them. Leave time at the end of presentation for them to ask questions. Put them in the “game” by appealing to their imagination with phrases like “image if you…”
Build suspense.
This is a popular presentation format. The speaker opens with a story that builds up to an exciting moment or narrative climax. But she doesn’t reward them immediately. She leaves the audience hanging by changing the topic right when the story gets good. This keeps the listeners engaged because their brains are hunting for the conclusion. The speaker then circles back around to the resolve the story in the conclusion of the presentation, offering the reward the listeners have been wanting.
Give intermittent rewards for listening.
In my classes, I use “brain breaks.” We periodically pivot away from lecture content to talk about something totally unrelated and often humorous in small groups with an open-ended prompt. But the students don’t know when these are coming. So they live in expectation. They listen with the knowledge that a break, a reward, could be coming at any given moment. You can do the same thing in your presentations by offering unexpected and intermittent “breaks” that involve movement, small group discussion, or a 2-3-minute free period. You’ll be surprised at how the audience comes back refreshed and motivated to listen.
Work in a challenge.
It could be anything from a simple rhetorical question to a slide that you show while asking, “what is wrong with this picture?” When we have to focus in order to seek out an answer or solution, this kicks the brain’s reward-center into action. If you can frame ordinary questions or problems as games or puzzles, then it motivates the audience to engage on a deeper level because it involves them in the hunt.
The more we know about the ways our brains and bodies work, the more we can create presentations that work with, rather than against, our natural systems. We can look to the research of neuroscientists to help us understand how to motivate our audience members. And we can use this knowledge to create presentations that keep the hunt alive.
Ethos3 exists to help you take your presentation to the next level. Ready to learn more?
