ABSTRACT

Human and animal behaviour is purposeful in meeting biological needs. But the learning mechanisms underpinning behaviour cannot be deduced from simple observation. Behaviour may be governed by intentional decision making available to consciousness or by automatic learning processes below consciousness. Comparative psychology has long wrestled with the question of whether animals have a mental life or are mere automata that react to stimuli. The same question has been applied to addicts (Wise and Koob 2014). The dominant theory of addiction claims that drug-seeking is automatic, which explains why addiction persists despite heavy costs and the desire to quit. Yet craving is a core construct in addiction theory, suggesting that conscious desires play an important role. The controlled account of addiction is gaining ground, arguing that drug-seeking persists because addicts assign abnormally high value to the drug outweighing the costs, and they relapse despite reporting a desire to quit simply because they change their mind when priorities later change.