"It is not mysterious at all how it works in the brain via reward (it does not really matter if external or just self-perceived) and reinforcement. "

This is not what I was talking about. But I am not certain how to explain what I meant. I am hard to motivate, particularly externally.
There is a large part of perfectionist/procrastinator in me.
After looking at what schizoid personality was - I am probably on the scale, but the traits that are identified as such are not traits about myself that bother me.

I more wish I understood why things like grades motivate people - not in the way you described above but more how it feels to be motivated by such a thing. I don't particularly want to be motivated by such, I just want to understand what it would be like and reject it. I wish I understood how it is that people are reassured or motivated when the therapist says trite and obvious platitudes, but according to other threads, some people are greatly moved by such. As an experiment (that failed because I was trying to prove that no one would react well to having such idiotic phrases murmured at them) I have tried phrases on students that the woman tried on me. I found them infuriating, but strangely enough - I find my students usually react in a completely different way and leave my office thanking me. While I am happy to have students stop crying and leave calmer, it also causes me to despair over the state of humanity that such tripe is comforting (this may not be the right word). Seriously -it causes me internal strife. I want to grab them and shout "Stop. I am just making this crap up. Don't be reassured by it. It is total ********. I don't mean it for god's sake. It doesn't mean anything." But I don't. Both because I am relieved they are leaving happier than when they came in and because I suppose I don't want to take away that tiny bit of reassurance or whatever that they got that seemed to give them some relief.
I sometimes feel like there is some internal part that many others have that I just don't.