When someone cannot answer a message, take a bath or go to the market, we easily call it laziness or a lack of willpower. Writing in Barta24, Konok Jyoti reports that recent analysis by Matthias Pillny, a researcher at the University of Hamburg in Germany, says that explanation is wrong. Motivation is not a fuel tank that is full or empty; the brain is constantly, almost invisibly, weighing costs against benefits.
Before any task the brain looks for three answers: how much effort will it take, how much reward will it bring, and how likely is the reward if I try. When that calculation is disrupted, people cannot get started, and from the outside it looks like laziness or indifference.
In a meta-analysis of 68 studies, Pillny's team found that people with schizophrenia, depression and bipolar disorder are less willing than others to work for a reward. The gap is largest in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and smaller, though statistically significant, in depression. Normally people work harder when a reward is larger or more certain, but in these illnesses that link weakens.
Using computer modelling, the researchers found a different cause in each illness. In schizophrenia it is hard to combine the information on effort, reward and likelihood into a decision, so people choose easy tasks or put things off. In depression the reward may still appeal but the effort feels mountainous. In bipolar disorder the depressive phase looks the same, while in manic phases it reverses: rewards seem huge and effort feels light.
Pillny writes that telling someone 'just start' sounds discouraging, because it treats the problem as a lack of willpower. Ask instead what feels hard: the effort, a distant reward, an uncertain result, or a task too complex to plan. Different causes need different help, the research suggests: making rewards clearer and more immediate in depression, breaking tasks into small steps and helping with planning in schizophrenia, and strategies that change with the phase in bipolar disorder.
The article notes that, according to the national mental health survey, about 16.8 percent of adults in Bangladesh have some mental illness, but fewer than one percent receive treatment. In that light, the writer argues, the first step is to try to understand inactivity in ourselves or those close to us rather than blame it.
Source: Barta24
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