For the specific case of weighing yourself, could you create a scale that only gives the positive reward, not the negative one? Like, it only tells you your weight if it’s lower than yesterday, or better yet if the trend in your weight is downward over the past week? Maybe it displays a cheerful message and plays a soothing sound when you weigh yourself, and it emails you later at random if you’ve been losing weight.
For the specific case of weighing yourself, could you create a scale that only gives the positive reward, not the negative one? Like, it only tells you your weight if it’s lower than yesterday, or better yet if the trend in your weight is downward over the past week? Maybe it displays a cheerful message and plays a soothing sound when you weigh yourself, and it emails you later at random if you’ve been losing weight.
Yeah, those seem like ameliorative measures that are likely to help the brain adopt better goals beneath the hood.