4.3 Frontal association area and motivation
The frontal association area supports learning abilities such as thought and inference, and commands one to behave humanly. It is important for learning ability to keep a motive and an appetite for leaning and to generate enthusiasm. The frontal cortex is involved in the adjustment of enthusiasm.
Learning ability improves when the neurotransmitter dopamine rises. When mental rewards such as pleasure, accomplishment, praise and love excite the nucleus accumbens of the limbic system, dopamine rises. Dopamine excretes from nerve nuclei such as substantia nigra pars compacta and the ventrotegmental area in the mid-part of the brain stem and reaches the entire brain, including the hypothalamic area and brain cortex. Substantia nigra pars compacta is related to the adjustment of movement. When one gets moderate exercise, one is refreshed and keeps trying because dopamine levels rise from movement.
Dopamine excretes much more when one lays out a goal and accomplishes the goal. Graham will be the best in “The Late Bourgeois World”, if a lady proposes marriage to a man in South Africa of the day. The storyteller married with Max at 18 years old and had a baby, then divorced him. When Max went to prison, Graham helped her form a petition.
His wife died from meningitis. Graham makes a defense against politically accusing people and acts unflinchingly, even if they have an impending danger. The storyteller passed on marriage with Graham in the Black Forest of Germany. If she wanted a marriage, it would have happened. Graham doesn’t quit and carried out and keeps his promise. We are attracted to the idea like a magnet.
Goal setting is generally difficult and if one can achieve it, it’s all well and good. One puts the goal on paper to visualize it, and one can be compensated by dopamine. If they reach their goal and are congratulated by family and friends, it will encourage them to try harder. This is the cycle of development of learning abilities. For example, learning goal setting → dopamine secretion → increased motivation → study → learning goal setting → dopamine secretion → increased motivation for next goal →learning goal setting.
When I consider the goal setting in “The Late Bourgeois World”, the death of Max becomes an important problem. Max left school to work. But work was unstable and joined the COD (committee of democrat) to be directly involved with the political movement of the African people. After that, he became a leader of the African sociological movement and approached the common people (blacks). The manuscript on the method of the African sociological movement wasn’t confiscated. Max vanished and reappeared after the divorce. The storyteller heard gossip about the relationship with an underworld organization, but Max ended up dying shrewdly.
花村嘉英（2018）「『ブルジョワ世界の終わりに』から見たゴーディマの意欲について」より translated by Yoshihisa Hanamura