Wanting vs Liking: Why Addiction Isn't About Pleasure | Dr. Kent Berridge

**Kent Berridge** (0:00)
No one starts as a sensitized individual when they start taking drugs. Just as you say, they take it for the pleasure of the drugs, for the social milieu to fit in, for all the various reasons a person might, but it's not a sensitized want. And many people, most people who start taking drugs are not going to develop sensitized wants.
There's a lot of individual differences and vulnerability to sensitization of this dopamine system. And many people are fairly resistant at street doses, so they don't become very sensitized. But some individuals are susceptible, some very, very susceptible. And if they're taking drugs, especially if they're taking them in a binge like fashion, like on weekends, not on the weekdays, but then on the weekends again, sort of spaced apart binges, that's the ideal recipe for developing sensitization of the brain mesolimbic dopamine system.

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**Richard Taite** (1:32)
Dr. Kent Berridge is a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Michigan, whose groundbreaking research helped change the way we understand addiction, pleasure, motivation, and the brain's reward system.
He's best known for developing the wanting versus liking theory of addiction, which explores why people continue chasing substances or behaviors even when they no longer truly enjoy them. His work has helped shape conversations around addiction, dopamine, cravings, and recovery across both science and mental health. Doctor, thank you for coming on the show today. It's a blessing to all of us. Your work is mainly about why human beings chase things, drugs, food, sex, gambling, success, even when those things stop making them happy.

**Kent Berridge** (2:27)
Yes, I think that's true. I mean, it's something we stumbled into. I've always been interested in pleasure and desire, you know, motivation and emotion, but the difference between wanting and liking is just something we stumbled into. We weren't expecting it.

**Richard Taite** (2:39)
Well, it's actually brilliant because it applies to the boots on the ground and people who are treating people. So it's absolutely, and the science doesn't always correlate, believe me, but this actually does. It's beautiful.

**Kent Berridge** (2:53)
All right.

**Richard Taite** (2:54)
Doctor, I've sat across from thousands of addicts. And one thing I've seen over and over is people using drugs they don't even seem to enjoy anymore. They look miserable. They hate themselves. And then they still go on to use again.
Is that exactly what your work explains?

**Kent Berridge** (3:13)
That is exactly what our work explains. That would be sort of the poster child for incentive sensitization forms of addiction.

**Richard Taite** (3:20)
You helped introduce the idea of wanting versus liking. Can you explain the difference and why that distinction matters so much in addiction?

**Kent Berridge** (3:31)
Well, I have to say that when I began my career decades ago, I didn't think there really was a difference. At that time, we all thought there was a unitary brain reward system sort of centered on dopamine, mesolimbic dopamine, and that it would cause both liking and wanting. That the two words were basically synonyms for the same psychological process of reward. It's something you want and something you like.
There was lots of evidence for that, and my beginnings were intended to add just a little bit more evidence to the dopamine as pleasure liking hypothesis. And I was disappointed that I couldn't do it. In our hands, we were asking the question a little bit differently from earlier studies by others. And in our hands, dopamine was not pleasure liking.

**Richard Taite** (4:16)
What I want to say to you, though, is in my experience, and help me out, at first, you know, there's a choice to be made to pick up. There is no addiction yet, okay? And at first, it's all fun.
And then you graduate to fun with problems. And then you graduate to all problems. And I think your work, correct me if I'm wrong, is in the area of graduating to all problems.

**Kent Berridge** (4:48)
I think that's right. I mean, our work, instead of sensitization, no one starts as a sensitized individual when they start taking drugs. I mean, just as you say, they take it for the pleasure of the drugs, for the social milieu to fit in, for all the various reasons a person might, but it's not a sensitized want at that point. That's right. And many people, most people who start taking drugs, are not going to develop sensitized wants.