title: Diurnal rhythms in psychological reward functioning in healthy young men: 'Wanting', liking, and learning.
abstract: A range of evidence suggests that human reward functioning is partly driven by the endogenous circadian system, generating 24-hour rhythms in behavioural measures of reward activation. Reward functioning is multifaceted but literature to date is largely limited to measures of self-reported positive mood states. The aim of this study was to advance the field by testing for hypothesised diurnal variation in previously unexplored components of psychological reward: 'wanting', liking, and learning using subjective and behavioural measures. Risky decision making (automatic Balloon Analogue Risk Task), affective responsivity to positive images (International Affective Pictures System), uncued self-reported discrete emotions, and learning-contingent reward (Iowa Gambling Task) were measured at 10.00 hours, 14.00 hours, and 19.00 hours in a counterbalanced repeated measures design with 50 healthy male participants (aged 18-30). As hypothesised, risky decision making (unconscious 'wanting') and ratings of arousal towards positive images (conscious wanting) exhibited a diurnal waveform with indices highest at 14.00 hours. No diurnal rhythm was observed for liking (pleasure ratings to positive images, discrete uncued positive emotions) or in a learning-contingent reward task. Findings reaffirm that diurnal variation in human reward functioning is most pronounced in the motivational 'wanting' components of reward.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychological Sciences , Swinburne University of Technology , John St, Hawthorn VIC , Australia.
authors.forename: Jamie E M
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Byrne
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychological Sciences , Swinburne University of Technology , John St, Hawthorn VIC , Australia.
authors.forename: Greg
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Murray
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000465:Algorithms; D001066:Appetite; D002940:Circadian Rhythm; D003657:Decision Making; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012201:Reward; D012309:Risk-Taking; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Circadian rhythms; diurnal rhythms; reward; wanting