The Science of Celebration: Why Do Positive Outcomes Lead to More Reward-Seeking?

This project aims to elucidate why humans engage in successive reward behaviours, specifically why they often seek and consume rewards (alcohol, food) after having experienced positive outcomes in other areas (winning, achievement).

The studies will build on my previous Master's by Research (MRes) project which demonstrated across two experiments that a rewarding outcome in a quiz (positive feedback eliciting positive emotions) substantially increased the consumption of rewarding but unhealthy snacks, compared to neutral or negative quiz outcomes.

The PhD project will investigate how these effects and successive reward-seeking behaviours more generally (e.g., celebrating after positive outcomes) can be explained.

A mixed-methods approach will be used in which controlled laboratory tasks, including a small exploratory fMRI paradigm and an ecological field experiment, will be followed by qualitative interviews aimed at helping to interpret the quantitative data.

Together, these studies will delineate the factors underlying successive reward engagement by contrasting the roles of (1) bottom-up, neural mechanisms, in which the pre-activation of the brain's reward system primes subsequent reward-seeking, and (2) top-down, cognitive-motivational processes, in which the achievement of positive outcomes is "self-rewarded" to consolidate successful behaviours that led to the outcome.

I will further aim to demonstrate that positive outcomes not only increase reward-seeking of food but also engagement with other rewards (e.g., social rewards).

The project will offer a novel insight into a uniquely human behaviour - seeking rewards following positive events - but also advance our understanding of every-day behaviours, such as snacking, that are often associated with negative health consequences.