No change without behavioural change : Getting caught in habitual ruts
The story so far...
In this post I suggested that different levels of uncertainty create different levels of stress which inhibit our ability to make quality decisions.
I then suggested that our brains are constantly gathering information on current levels of uncertainty based on past experiences or gathering new data from our external environment or how we are currently feeling.
So, we start to weight up the options.?Organisational change is potentially moving people to a different more uncertain or risky state - it is about probabilities of outcome.
We then start to contemplate change we are becoming more aware of the pros & cons of change but have yet to act.?
But what happens when we decide to act?
As we weigh up the pros & cons (through active inference) we develop a strategy (a new belief) to deal with the change.?
Our Hippocampus ‘stores’ our new (posterior) beliefs & strategy for dealing with the current change.
Our Posterior Parietal Cortex integrates diverse information and helps us focus.?It also contain mirror neurons that might helps us to copy other’s behaviours.?We prepare to act. Before we do, our Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC) gets ready because, by processing ‘gut’ feelings, it can sense when our behaviour hits a snag.?
Finally, we get to the Striatum which is
‘a sort of learning machine dedicated to achieving success in behavior.’ (Graybiel et al 2015).?
This area is responsible for rewarding us depending on the degree of prediction error (free energy).
The behavioral literature on reinforcement learning shows that it is not the reward (or punishment) per se that reinforces (extinguishes) behaviors. Rather, it is the difference between the predicted value of future rewards or punishments and their ultimate reward or punishment.?(Graybiel et al 2015).?
So given our strategy we start to anticipate a reward.
Change under Certainty
Under ‘Certain’ conditions we have a clear proven strategy, and we know what the reward will be, and we are certain of achieving it. Stress levels are low because we are in familiar territory.
This is more like ‘business as usual’ but we could potentially get stuck in ‘habitual ruts’.?
Our brains might start to use surplus energy for mind wandering & creativity, but too little activity could result in boredom from repetitive tasks.
How do we get caught in habitual ruts and fail to change?
When things are certain dopamine is likely to be released as a ‘reward’ for habit formation which could cause Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).?
Dopamine may not be released as a reward for finding a new strategy but using an old one.
Dopamine if more likely to moderate the sense of urgency rather than act as an incentive for reward.? So rather than dopamine being the potential perpetuator of addiction, it is more likely to be the antidote to addiction because it helps to suppress our ‘urges’.?
Maybe dopamine helps to keep us in our comfort (markov) blankets .?This is arguably not change at all.?
So how do we get into learning loops and adapt our behaviour ??This will be covered in our next article :)