Stanford University School of Medicine
The Robert G. Fenley Writing Awards: Basic Science Staff Writing
Gold
New Stanford Medicine faculty member Neir Eshel, an assistant professor of psychiatry, alerted our office to a paper, to be published Nov. 27, 2023, in Neuron, describing his team’s methodical study of the critical role of dopamine – the “do it again, do it some more” brain chemical linked to pleasure, learning and habit formation – in our overvaluation of what economists call “sunk costs”: the time, money, effort, suffering or any combination of them that we’ve put into ownership, an experience, or our own self-esteem. The research, which was conducted on mice given various rewards after performing increasingly demanding tasks, was somewhat obscure, relating to the timing of dopamine-secretion responses in different critical reward-implicated brain regions.
Staff science writer Bruce Goldman, on discussing the study with Eshel, glimpsed gold in the study’s attempts to find the neurophysiological underpinnings of “wanting” something versus “liking” that something – and in its implications for our paradoxical overvaluation of sunk costs.
We were strongly inclined to put a spotlight on this young researcher, with whom our office hadn’t communicated before. But what was the best way to do that? Perhaps not by means of a standard news release, but rather by a tongue-in-cheek feature.
What was the most impactful part of your entry?
This approach seemed to work. Goldman’s story was picked up by a number of media outlets (see list of selected sites) and has been repurposed as a feature in Stanford Medicine, our flagship magazine. More important, however, has been its influence on the junior professor’s career arc.
In an email to Goldman, Eshel wrote: “Based directly on the feature you wrote, a literary agent based in New York reached out to me to discuss a possible book on the topic targeting a general audience. I'm mulling it over! I also got invited to be the featured speaker for the all-hands meeting of Stanford Medicine's technology department (several hundred people looking to get inspired by the research their technology facilitates). Finally, trainees at various levels (undergraduate, graduate) have told me that they read the piece and were interested in working on these projects if I have availability (which I don't right now). All in all, several happy outcomes.”
What challenge did you overcome?
Eshel’s study was quite technical in its methodology and language (requiring fluency in both economics and neuroscience), and its rather arcane results seemed unlikely to elicit much media interest. But Goldman had an idea for drawing attention to the study’s motives by placing them within the context of the writer’s own bittersweet experience with sunk costs: his borderline-pathological clinging to “The Bowlvo,” an ancient, decrepit car that never ceased to betray him.
Contact:
Alison Peterson
medawards@stanford.edu