this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2025
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[–] SippyCup@lemmy.ml 7 points 4 hours ago

I think you're missing one. Curiosity, if you're romantic. Or dopamine if you're cynical.

We've found that intelligent animals will investigate simple puzzles in a laboratory setting, even when the potential for reward has been removed.

We've also found that if you give people a little puzzle to solve, in the absence of reward, people will attempt to solve it regardless. As soon as you offer to pay them, however, the desire to solve the little puzzle is gone entirely as soon as the money is gone. This was shown in a study where participants were offered a dollar per shape they recreated with blocks. Participants who were offered nothing continued to work even when they were left alone and weren't expected to.