Psychology of Pain and Pleasure (Reward-punishment System)
One approach to evaluating the relationship between pain and pleasure is to consider these two systems as a reward-punishment based system. When pleasure is perceived, one associates it with reward. When pain is perceived, one associates with punishment. Evolutionarily, this makes sense, because oftentimes, actions that result in pleasure or chemicals that induce pleasure work towards restoring homeostasis in the body. For example, when the body is hungry, the pleasure of rewarding food to one-self restores the body back to a balanced state of replenished energy. Like so, this can also be applied to pain, because the ability to perceive pain enhances both avoidance and defensive mechanisms that were, and still are, necessary for survival.
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Famous quotes containing the words psychology, pain and/or pleasure:
“We have lost the art of living; and in the most important science of all, the science of daily life, the science of behaviour, we are complete ignoramuses. We have psychology instead.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“In the small circle of pain within the skull
You still shall tramp and tread one endless round
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Pacing forever in the hell of make-believe
Which never is belief: this is your fate on earth
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—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“The unlucky hand dealt to clear and precise writers is that people assume they are superficial and so do not go to any trouble in reading them: and the lucky hand dealt to unclear ones is that the reader does go to some trouble and then attributes the pleasure he experiences in his own zeal to them.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)