The Science Of Why You Crave Hype 🧠

Indexed: 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]What do I mean by fine? Well, there's a concept called reward prediction error.

[00:00:03]Reward prediction error says that the dopamine that it is experienced, that is that's released from the VTA and nucleus accumbens, is going to be of a certain value. And that value is going to be compared to the desire and expectation of what I thought I was going to get. So, if you take what you actually got minus what you expected, that's reward prediction error. So, if the sandwich is basically what I expected to get, fine, dopamine comes down basically to a baseline level that's pretty standard for me and is basically the baseline level I had before I ever thought about the sandwich at all.

[00:00:38]If the sandwich completely surprises me and is completely amazing, just an amazing sandwich, well then, the level of dopamine that I experience when I consume that sandwich is going to be even greater and it's going to be that minus what I expected. So, there it's a bigger reward prediction error in the direction of higher peak by consuming the sandwich.

[00:01:00]And then, of course, there's the other possibility, which is the deli's closed or the sandwich they make me is lousy or doesn't taste good or something happened in the consuming of that sandwich that just makes it a bad experience.