I didn't understand it and found the whole thing vaguely disturbing, to the point that, whenever possible, I would navigate around the lobby so as to avoid even looking at the banner.
Several months later it was replaced with a similar one-same font, same logo-that read, "Give ‘Til It Feels Good."
Adults!, I thought. Why does everything have to be so confusing? Should giving be pleasurable or painful?
That complicated and ambivalent relationship with giving is just a sign of all the other complicated ways humans pursue pleasure. Pleasure is a central motivator in our lives; after all, if we didn't find things like food, water, and sex rewarding we would not survive and pass our genetic material to the next generation.
Furthermore, most experiences in our lives that we find transcendent-whether illicit vices or socially sanctioned ritual and social practices as diverse as exercise and meditation activate an anatomically and biochemically defined pleasure circuit in the brain. Orgasm, learning, highly caloric foods, gambling, prayer, dancing 'till you drop, and playing on the Internet: They all evoke neural signal that converge on a small group of interconnected brain areas called the "medial forebrain pleasure circuit" in which the neurotransmitter dopamine plays a crucial role. It is in these tiny clumps of neurons that human pleasure is felt. This dopamine-using pleasure circuitry can also be co-opted by some, but not all, psychoactive substances like cocaine, nicotine, heroin or alcohol.
That connection to pleasure I witnessed looking at the "Give Til It Feels Good" banners made more sense as I began to examine new development in brain research that might help us all better understand what motivates charitable giving.
One set of studies was conducted by William Harbaugh, a professor of economics, at the University of Oregon, and his colleagues. The goal of their study was to figure out how the brain's pleasure circuit responded to differing approaches to giving and paying taxes.
