#178 – Dr Poppy Watson on Compulsive Reward-seeking Behaviour

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In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Dr Poppy Watson about compulsive reward-seeking behavior, commonly seen in drug or gambling addiction, but also in more subtle forms that influence our everyday actions and habits.

The research interests of Dr Poppy Watson lie at the intersection of motivation, attention and choice behaviour. A fundamental question in human psychology is whether we are totally in control of the choices we make and the extent to which we rely on environmental cues to guide our decisions. She is interested in the conflict that arises between our ‘good intentions’ (for example to eat healthily or avoid alcohol) and our innate tendency to be attracted by things that signal reward such as the McDonald’s golden M or the beer logo.

She uses methods such as eye tracking and neuroimaging to examine this interplay between biased cognitions and habits on the one hand and explicit motivation on the other. She tries to understand the mechanisms that contribute to unwanted patterns of behaviour in both healthy and clinical populations. She is also involved in intervention projects (to improve treatment outcomes for patients and measuring the efficacy of these interventions) and is interested more generally in health psychology and behaviour change.

Originally from New Zealand, Poppy Watson completed her Masters (2011) and PhD (2016) at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. There, she investigated reward-seeking behaviours and how these could be triggered by cues in the environment. From 2017 - 2023 Poppy worked at UNSW - first as a postdoc with Mike Le Pelley and Steve Most and then as a Discovery Early Career research fellow (DECRA). Since October 2023 she has been working as a Lecturer at UTS, helping to develop the Psychology Undergraduate Programme.

Links:

Dr Poppy Watson (UTS Profile)
Dr Poppy Watson (Google Scholar)
The Age of Addiction: How Bad Habits Became Big Business
Publications

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