CONCEPT
Incentive Sensitization
Robinson and Berridge's 1993 theory that compulsive drug pursuit is driven not by <em>tolerance to pleasure</em> but by the opposite process — the progressive amplification of the wanting system's response to reward-predicting cues. Repeated exposure does not dull the signal. It sharpens it.
Incentive-sensitization theory, formalized by Terry Robinson and Kent Berridge in 1993 and vindicated across three subsequent decades, explains why addiction persists even as drugs stop producing pleasure. Repeated drug exposure produces two opposite processes simultaneously: tolerance (the hedonic liking system adapts, requiring higher doses for the same pleasure) and sensitization (the mesolimbic dopamine wanting system becomes hyperreactive to drug-related cues). The cravings intensify as the pleasure diminishes. The theory was controversial because it required abandoning the common-sense idea that addicts use drugs because drugs feel good; instead, addiction is a neural state in which wanting has escalated and decoupled from liking. Their 2025 retrospective confirmed the framework's durability across species and substances — and opened the door to its application to non-drug compulsions, including AI-augmented work.
In The You On AI Field Guide
Sensitization is not tolerance. Tolerance is a familiar concept — the alcoholic who needs three drinks to feel what one drink
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