ArticleeLife2020
Momentary subjective well-being depends on learning and not reward.
Article in eLife, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT05065151 (Understanding Motivation in Parkinson's Patients Through Neurophysiology), which is not on this map. Cited by 28 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Understanding Motivation in Parkinson's Patients Through Neurophysiology
Who cites it
28 citing papers in PubMed.
- Dissociable roles of reward prediction error in the contrasting mood dynamics of depression and anxiety.eLife · 2026Article
- Article
- Mood computational mechanisms underlying increased risk behavior in adolescent suicidal patients.eLife · 2026Article
- Assessing the validity and reliability of computational phenotyping of mood.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Activity in human dorsal raphe nucleus signals changes in behavioural policy.Nature communications · 2026Article
- The relationship between regular substance use and cost comparisons in stable and volatile learning contexts.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Dual process impairments in reinforcement learning and working memory systems underlie learning deficits in physiological anxiety.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- Longitudinal Dynamic Relationships Between Videogame Use and Symptoms of Gaming Disorder and Depression Among Chinese Children and Adolescents.Journal of youth and adolescence · 2025Article
- Web-browsing patterns reflect and shape mood and mental health.Nature human behaviour · 2025Article
- Emotions and individual differences shape human foraging under threat.Nature. Mental health · 2025Article
- Affective integration in experience, judgment, and decision-making.Communications psychology · 2024Review
- The affective response to positive performance feedback is associated with motor learning.Experimental brain research · 2024Article
- Language sentiment predicts changes in depressive symptoms.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Decision-Making with Predictions of Others' Likely and Unlikely Choices in the Human Brain.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2024Article
- Ethological computational psychiatry: Challenges and opportunities.Current opinion in neurobiology · 2024Review
- Hidden Reward: Affect and Its Prediction Errors as Windows Into Subjective Value.Current directions in psychological science · 2024Article
- Bridge the gap caused by public health crises: medical humanization and communication skills build a psychological bond that satisfies patients.International journal for equity in health · 2024Article
- Reliability of gamified reinforcement learning in densely sampled longitudinal assessments.PLOS digital health · 2023Article
- A mesocorticolimbic signature of pleasure in the human brain.Nature human behaviour · 2023Article
- Neurocomputational mechanisms underlying fear-biased adaptation learning in changing environments.PLoS biology · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Subjective well-being or happiness is often associated with wealth. Recent studies suggest that momentary happiness is associated with reward prediction error, the difference between experienced and predicted reward, a key component of adaptive behaviour. We tested subjects in a reinforcement learning task in which reward size and probability were uncorrelated, allowing us to dissociate between the contributions of reward and learning to happiness. Using computational modelling, we found convergent evidence across stable and volatile learning tasks that happiness, like behaviour, is sensitive to learning-relevant variables (i.e. probability prediction error). Unlike behaviour, happiness is not sensitive to learning-irrelevant variables (i.e. reward prediction error). Increasing volatility reduces how many past trials influence behaviour but not happiness. Finally, depressive symptoms reduce happiness more in volatile than stable environments. Our results suggest that how we learn about our world may be more important for how we feel than the rewards we actually receive.
Indexed as
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.