How many pets do you have to cuddle to stop dopamine?

Happiness is a warm puppy, or high social status and a good support network

Bang, bang, cute, cute.

1: People in the vicinity of Wall Street types who use cocaine are eager to know.

4 was me.

I didn't know you used cocaine.

This data suggests that people who achieve greater social status are more likely to be able to experience life as rewarding and stimulating because they have more targets for dopamine to act upon within the striatum.

I must confess that I'm struggling a bit with the cause/effect. I get the implication for causation with people who are (let's call it) dopamine-resistant--life doesn't make you happy, so you're either miserable or hunt down extravagant highs just to feel something. But for the dopamine-receptive, does high status accrue simply from being not-miserable?

Also, I feel like "social status" is underdefined in this article (I assume the actual study defines it quite rigorously). Like, is this high SES in the broadly understood sense (which would mean a pretty small part of the population), or is it people who achieve high status along any number of avenues? I'm thinking like respected elder in a poor community--would that count?

If it's the narrow definition, then I think you need a three-part model--high SES, average, dopamine-resistant--but if it's anyone who achieves status of any kind (money, social respect, professional standing), then you really have 2 kinds of people.

If raising your SES isn't possible and neither cocaine or pets appeals to you, maybe exercise can work.

Also, I feel like "social status" is underdefined in this article (I assume the actual study defines it quite rigorously).

My assumption is that they kind of hedge the definition to fit whatever phenomenon they were seeing. "What's the scientific way to say that life seems to go easy for these people?"

Cocaine, pets, and exercise are all compatible with each other but not raising your SES. The choice is clear.

I'm surprised nobody said it (not that this is a lively thread), but obviously this speaks to the whole hedonic treadmill thing: successful people tend to be happy pre-success due to dopamine receptivity and then they can enjoy their success for the same reason, while unhappy people who find success don't become happy because they don't grow any new receptors.

And really, this is very revealing about the tortured artist trope: the success comes from underlying talent that's really orthogonal to dopamine stuff*, so if they were miserable as poor unknowns, the positive aspects of success don't matter because they're unreceptive to them. Cobain strikes me as the clearest example of this, but I think the reason it's a trope is that the arts might be the clearest place where the path to success is divorced from the dopamine-related paths to normal high social status. To become a pastor, or to do well in business, or even to not be a rich failson, it's all much easier if you experience positive feedback as positive and come across as happy and personable. Obviously miserable people can succeed too, but the picture of a person with high social status isn't a Scrooge, it's someone with loyal friends and a loving family and a fine career.

*that is, whatever the causal arrow might be, writing good songs or whatever has nothing to do with dopamine receptivity

Athletics is another area where talent matters more than social skills, but to really succeed in athletics requires drive and focus, which IMO are hard to square with dopamine resistance--if you're not happy when you win, or receive awards, or hear cheers, then what is driving you to the amount of working out and practicing that lead to high levels of success? It happens, of course, but I think it's a different dynamic from the arts, which involve a very different internal drive (and also aren't competitive as such--two athletes with equal talent, the harder worker will get farther, but two artists of equal talent? much more luck or matching the zeitgeist than marginal dedication to craft).

6: Should Ihave said "that". Anyway, if you give a Master of the Universe a pet does it produce Oxytocin that blocks their dopamine-seeking behaviors to make them more eusocial, I.e. less asshole-ish. I think we need to do an experiment.

I took a perfectly clear comment, deliberately misinterpreted it to make a stupid joke, and I'll do it again when I next have the chance.

When do we get the longitudinal study to suggest whether having lots of dopamine receptors makes you better at winning high status and social support, or vv, or both? Because then we can start testing people for their potential well before anyone has to actually do anything. Brightsiding!

This reminds me of an oldish study on, IIRC, British civil servants, which discovered that the higher status they were (in service grade, I guess) the healthier they remained into old age, despite all having plentiful material resources. I don't remember if that one was longitudinal either, or had access to enough health records to guess.

I have mixed feeling about Dopamine Discourse because it feels like we're about ten years away from saying "Anything anyone does for pleasure is inherently addictive."

I read an interesting article long ago, interviewing a bunch of scientists, with the theme that to be a scientist requires a bit of OCD. The comment about artists & athletes reminded me, b/c I think the same can be true of scientists. It's lonely work, demanding a lot of precision and careful management of lots of details -- perfect for people who are just a little bit obsessive, but also for people who don't play well with others.

Also, I feel like "social status" is underdefined in this article (I assume the actual study defines it quite rigorously). Like, is this high SES in the broadly understood sense (which would mean a pretty small part of the population), or is it people who achieve high status along any number of avenues? I'm thinking like respected elder in a poor community--would that count?

Frog:pond ratio ≥ .8.

Does having a lot of dopamine receptors make your life better or worse if you're experiencing very few dopamine-producing events? Do you get a sniff of even faint enjoyment, like a moth following pheromones, or are you extra sad with a zillion "nothing here" reports?

19: Surely the answer is in life's little pleasures. I'd imagine that, even in the gulag, dopamine fiends get more firing than the perpetually miserable.