Dopamine deficit: the reward is needed now

A neurotypical person „inherently knows” the reward comes after the finished task, so tolerates the stress along the way. The ADHD brain discounts future reward more steeply — preferring a smaller reward now over a larger one later (well-documented: Jackson & MacKillop meta-analysis, 2016). The same explains susceptibility to easy dopamine hits. A caveat on the framing: there is one dopamine system, not two „types.” The catchy „effort vs non-effort dopamine” split (TJ Power’s DOSE book) is a popularization, not peer-reviewed science; what established research (Salamone) shows is that dopamine drives willingness to exert effort for reward. The practical upshot: make the reward explicit and near-term, and bias toward effort dopamine over easy hits.