ReviewTrends in cognitive sciences2024
The affective gradient hypothesis: an affect-centered account of motivated behavior.
Review in Trends in cognitive sciences, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers.
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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.
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Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed.
- Article
- Diverging influences of punishment motivation and negative affect on cognitive control.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- A dynamic affective surprise signal influences episodic memory.Cognition · 2026Article
- The experience of cognitive conflict is intrinsically rewarding.Communications psychology · 2026Article
- The emergence of neuropsychiatric symptoms in preclinical Alzheimer's disease: An emotion regulation perspective.Neuron · 2026Review
- Integrated Representations of Threat and Controllability in the Lateral Frontal Pole.Journal of cognitive neuroscience · 2026Article
- Affective valence as a computational signal for learning value.Communications psychology · 2026Article
- Need for cognition moderates negative evaluation of task switching: evidence from two behavioral experiments among young adults.Psychological research · 2026Article
- The case for value as a common currency in decision-making and intersystem competition.Frontiers in cognition · 2026Article
- Distinct effects of monetary versus social reward magnitudes on the emotional congruency effect in subclinical depression: a word-face Stroop study.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- How do accessible veterinary care providers evaluate programmes and engage communities? Results of a qualitative analysis of Canadian service providers.The Veterinary record · 2025Article
- Born to act: Deferred action and desire as active inference.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2025Review
- The value of consciousness: experiences worth having.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Neurocomputational mechanisms underlying the distinct motivational influences of reward and punishment on cognitive control.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- The interoceptive origin of reinforcement learning.Trends in cognitive sciences · 2025Review
- Understanding cognitive control in depression: the interactive role of emotion, expected efficacy and reward.BMC psychiatry · 2025Article
- Healthcare professionals and the public sentiment analysis of ChatGPT in clinical practice.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Alcohol intoxication and negative mood similarly affect reward learning but not punishment learning in the Iowa gambling task.Judgment and decision making · 2025Article
- Neural and Computational Mechanisms of Motivation and Decision-making.Journal of cognitive neuroscience · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
Abstract
Everyone agrees that feelings and actions are intertwined, but cannot agree how. According to dominant models, actions are directed by estimates of value and these values shape or are shaped by affect. I propose instead that affect is the only form of value that drives actions. Our mind constantly represents potential future states and how they would make us feel. These states collectively form a gradient reflecting feelings we could experience depending on actions we take. Motivated behavior reflects the process of traversing this affective gradient, towards desirable states and away from undesirable ones. This affective gradient hypothesis solves the puzzle of where values and goals come from, and offers a parsimonious account of apparent conflicts between emotion and cognition.
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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.