The Three Points of Reward

When you're expecting something to happen like well I'm getting this bonus it's not particularly rewarding but when an unexpected reward happens it really gets your attention. A bonus doesn't tend to have much intrinsic reward value in terms of activation of the reward networks of the brain whereas something unexpected has a really big big big hit. The choice really was the part that I think people were shocked about not the amount of the award at all that wasn't that wasn't anything that shocked folks and there's a lot of research behind this.