Ideally, we would be just as motivated to carry out instrumental goals as we are to carry out terminal goals. In reality, this is not the case. As a human, your motivation system does discriminate between the goals that you feel obligated to achieve and the goals that you pursue as ends unto themselves.
I don’t think that this is quite right actually.
If the psychological link between them is strong in the right way, the instrumental goal will feel as appealing as the terminal goal (because succeeding at the instrumental goal feels like making progress on the terminal goal). Techniques like this one work.
I think the phenomenon that is being described here is not actually about instrumental goals vs. terminal goals. It’s about time horizons and cost-benefit. We’re more motivated to do things when the reward is immediate than when the reward is far off in time. The number of instrumental steps between our current action and the reward is only relevant in that it correlates with the time horizon.
I don’t think that this is quite right actually.
If the psychological link between them is strong in the right way, the instrumental goal will feel as appealing as the terminal goal (because succeeding at the instrumental goal feels like making progress on the terminal goal). Techniques like this one work.
I think the phenomenon that is being described here is not actually about instrumental goals vs. terminal goals. It’s about time horizons and cost-benefit. We’re more motivated to do things when the reward is immediate than when the reward is far off in time. The number of instrumental steps between our current action and the reward is only relevant in that it correlates with the time horizon.