SuperBetter: How a gameful life can make you stronger, happier, braver and more resilient. Jane McGonigal
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our goal primes us—neurologically, with more dopamine—to work harder. It’s the same biochemical process of addiction, but it’s a virtuous rather than a vicious cycle.
As a result of these findings, scientists have proposed that higher dopamine levels in the brain may actually be the most important driver of a solid work ethic.14 This is a crucial rethinking of one of the most universally valued and admired character strengths. Work ethic is not a moral virtue that can be cultivated simply by wanting to be a better person. It’s actually a biochemical condition that can be fostered, purposefully, through activity that increases dopamine levels in the brain. This explains precisely how challenging video games—like Re-Mission—could prime us to tackle other everyday challenges with higher effort and more determination.
Adding further evidence to this theory, another recent study suggests that frequent video gamers’ brains are indeed changed in a long-term way by the heightened dopamine response. A team of twenty-five scientists from Germany, Belgium, France, the U.K., and Canada reported together that frequent gamers—defined as people who play at least nine hours a week on average—have higher gray matter volume in the “left ventral striatum,” part of the reward-processing area of the brain.15 More gray matter, in general, means that the brain is bigger and more powerful. More gray matter in the left ventral striatum, in particular, means you have more cognitive resources to devote to motivation, determination, optimism, and learning.
It’s possible that people who are naturally more motivated by challenge and who are better learners are more attracted to video games—rather than video games increasing these strengths over time. However, most neuroscientists who study games believe this is not the case. They attribute differences between the brains of frequent and infrequent game players to neuroplasticity, or the ability of the brain to rewire itself and strengthen different regions based on frequent activity.16 Daphne Bavelier, Ph.D., and her cognitive neuroscience laboratory at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, for example, have been studying the effect of action video games on brain plasticity and learning. After more than a decade of research, she believes that games lead to significant neural reorganization, resulting in increased attention, faster decision making, and more effective learning.17 Indeed, Dr. Bavelier has identified video games as potentially the single most effective intervention for increasing neuroplasticity in adults.18
Judy Willis, M.D., is another neuroscientist who believes in the power of games to rewire players’ brains for the better. A former chief resident at UCLA’s neurology clinic, she spent fifteen years seeing patients in her own pediatric neurology practice. Today she works with schools and educators to teach cognitive habits that lead to lifelong success and psychological well-being. Her primary strategy: provide students with daily experiences of self-efficacy, including frequent video game play.
“Neurons that fire together, wire together,” she likes to say, quoting one of the basic principles of neuroscience.19 The more you repeat a thought pattern, the stronger the neural networks that drive it become. And the stronger the neural networks, the more likely you are to repeat that thought pattern in the future. The pattern becomes easier to access, with neurons firing up to one hundred times faster—and because the patterns are repeated so often, the neural networks are less vulnerable to cognitive decline over time.
This means that the self-efficacy we experience when we play games frequently is not just a belief, according to Dr. Willis. It’s a way of thinking that is hardwired into the brain—a result of repeated activation of specific neurological circuits that train the brain to be motivated by challenge, rewarded by feedback, and more resilient in the face of temporary failure. “This is why nothing builds a success mindset faster or more effectively than video games,” Dr. Willis told me. “When you have constant opportunities to try different strategies and get feedback, you get more frequent and more intense bursts of dopamine. Not only do you get minute-to-minute pleasure, but the mindset starts changing in long-term ways. Your brain starts looking at things that weren’t achievable before and starts to think they might be achievable with a little effort. It expects to learn and improve and eventually succeed, because that’s what it’s used to doing.
“When you’re constantly experiencing successful goal achievement,” she explains, “your brain’s cost-benefit analysis changes entirely. You can overrule your brain’s default mode that wants you to avoid wasting energy on difficult tasks or challenging goals. Your brain adapts to seek out more challenge, to be less afraid of failure, and to be more resilient in the face of setbacks.”
Fifteen years’ worth of neuroscience research on games adds up to one big idea: if you want to change your brain for the better—to turn motivation into self-efficacy, to learn faster, and to cultivate more resilience—play more games. Or at the very least, provoke your brain with challenging learning opportunities in the same ways that good games do.
Here is one of Dr. Willis’s favorite ways to spike dopamine in the brain. It’s not a game, but it’s very gameful. She uses this simple technique with patients and clients to help them recover from mental burnout. And it’s your next quest!
QUEST 12: Make a Prediction
What to do: Make a prediction about something—anything—that you can personally verify the outcome of sometime in the next twenty-four hours.
It can be big or small, silly or serious. Just make a prediction—and see if you’re right!
Examples: Here are some things SuperBetter players have made predictions about.
• The winner of a sporting event
• “The exact amount of money in my bank account at this moment, down to the penny”
• “The number of emails I’ll receive in the next hour”
• “What mood I’ll be in this exact time tomorrow”
• “Whose snoring will wake me first tonight: husband versus dog. I predict husband!”
• “What song my favorite band will play first at their concert”
• “What score, on a scale from 1 to 10, my best friend will rate the movie we’re watching together”
• “How fast I can put the dishes away without breaking anything. Prediction: two minutes, fifteen seconds!”
• “How many hugs I will get from former teachers, coaches, and friends in the next twenty-four hours. I’m visiting my hometown, from thirty years and many miles away, so I think it will be a very high number!”
Why it works: Making a prediction is one of the most reliable and efficient ways to prime the reward circuitry of the brain. “Every prediction you make triggers an increase in attention and dopamine,” says Dr. Willis. That’s because every time you make a prediction, two highly rewarding outcomes are possible. You might be right—which will feel good! Or, you might be wrong—which will give you information that will help you make a better prediction next time. Surprisingly, this will also feel good—because your brain loves learning. In fact, “the dopamine boost is often greater when you learn something new and useful than when you succeed,” Dr. Willis says.
Dozens of scientific studies back up this claim. Gamers get a dopamine hit even during failure and losses—as long as they have a chance to try again.20
So go ahead and make a prediction—any prediction! Whether you’re right or wrong, you’ll get a dopamine boost. It’s a win-win game. Use this trick whenever you’re bored, frustrated, or stressed. It’s a quick and natural way to provoke curiosity and attention, while strengthening the neural circuitry that promotes determination, ambition, and perseverance. (And if you’re with someone who is bored, frustrated, or stressed, ask them to make a prediction!)
Tip: For an extra dopamine boost, try to get someone else to make a competing prediction. The added