Topical Blog 2/3 10pm

Chuck Noland, Tom Hanks, is introduced to the viewers as a character that may not have the perfect life, but is one that is use to his life. He also is shown to have some of the key components that he needs to be happy. He has a girlfriend, Kelly (Helen Hunt), who he is deeply in love with, and he has a career job that seems to drive him crazy at times, but is still a job that he obviously loves. These elements along with others make up his external environment and motivate and drive him through life.
However, Chuck’s life is turned upside down once the plane he is on crashes, and he is stranded on an island. The plane crash is another external event, which he had no control over. Once on the island Chuck faces many stressors or problems, many of which he was yet to every have to deal with. The first one I will talk about is an essential physiological need of everyday life, nourishment. Nourishment is driven by appetite, which is something that every organism must fulfill multiple times each day. The process of nourishment is an example of the ‘Model of Need-Drive’. The model explains how an essential physiological need, i.e. eating, begins to gradually become the biggest current motivator on a person’s mind, regardless of whatever else they may be doing at the time, and that once they fulfill the need their body returns to a ‘satiated state’.
On the island it was very difficult for Chuck to fulfill this need because there were no water bottles, fast-food restaurants, or any ‘easy-access’ places for nourishment. This resulted in Chuck having to fix his hunger problem by splitting open coconuts, killing fish, and trying to build a fire. According to the textbook ‘hunger’ is defined as the body’s means of defending its genetic set point. Also according to the textbook cold temperature foods stimulate hunger, which unfortunately for Chuck he was only eating coconuts and raw fish and crab for the first part of his time on the island. Also according to the textbook, when ‘fat-cell size’ is reduced, hunger arises and persists until feeding behavior allows the fat cells to return to their natural size. Well, unfortunately for Chuck he was on the island for four years, and even though he got much better at providing nourishment for his body, he still was not able to provide enough nourishment as his body needed when he went there, which is why he was much skinnier after four years on the island. And with the physiological changes that he went through, I believe his body reached a ‘settling point’, simply because after such an extended period of time, it realized that there was no need to have neurotransmitters transmit hunger signals near as frequently as they most likely did when he was first on the island.
Another obvious problem that Chuck faces is social isolation. After a while on the island he accidentally forms a social companion in a volleyball, who he calls ‘Wilson’. Social isolation is something that may suit some people, but even for those people who enjoy privacy, an extended period of it, such as the one Chuck goes through is undoubtedly not preferred, which is why Wilson helps Chuck survive, because he helps motivate and drive him every day. He gives him a small ‘purpose’ in life. Wilson fulfilled a social need for Chuck. Another thing that drives Chuck is the picture of his girlfriend Kelly that he has in an old pocket-watch. He has as much desire as possible to return to her. The extreme desire that he has is made clear by the fact that he is shown looking at the picture of her numerous times throughout the movie.
Chuck comes to the realization after about a year on the island that he will never make it back home to Kelly, so he loses his drive or motivation to live. This results in him attempting to hang himself, which obviously does not go as planned. Clearly Chuck was very depressed prior to attempting suicide. This means that he was not within his ‘homeostasis’ because his internal state was not stable. A major reason why Chuck was depressed is because there was nothing in his everyday life on the island that he truly enjoyed, which meant that he rarely ever had any dopamine released. The only time that I think he was truly happy on the island was when he was finally successful in making a fire.
Another problem Chuck faces during his time on the island is a tooth infection. Prior to coming to the island he had put off going to see a dentist about it, and it resulted in him having to knock the tooth out with an ice skate. The tooth infection is an example of an internal event, which he did have control over because he was able to solve the problem by knocking the tooth out. The last problem that Chuck faces during his time on the island is his attempt to return home. He plans out his return by building a small little boat with whatever means he can use from the island. The part of the brain that is associated with making plans is the cerebral cortex (frontal lobes). It is also associated with setting goals and formulating intentions, which Chuck uses by planning to return home.
Terms or Concepts: 1)Settling Point 2) Satiated State 3) Temperature of food affecting hunger 4) Fat cell size affecting hunger 5) Hunger 6) Set Point 7) Drive 8) Cerebral Cortex 9) Dopamine 10) Physiological Needs 11) Social Needs 12) Model of Need-Drive

This movie Cast Away really does a good job illustrating how all humans have physiological, psychological, and social needs. During the times where all our needs are met, humans maintain a state of homeostasis, or a stable internal state. If our internal state is disturbed though hunger, thirst, etc, our bodily systems generate motivational states to help put our body back in order. The physiological needs that were most evident in the movie were hunger and thirst. If physiological needs are left unattended to for a long period of time, serious health issues may arise causing emergency situations which cause motivation to kick in.

During the beginning of the movie, Chuck was living a lifestyle which allowed him to support his physiological, psychological, and social needs. He had a loving girlfriend, many friends, a good job, and he also had the resources to take care of himself physiologically. At that point, Chuck didn’t have to worry about where his next meal would come from, but that soon changed when he was stranded on a remote island with no food or water. For quite awhile, Chuck relied on drinking the juice from coconuts he found. The scene where he tries to break the coconuts by smashing and throwing them against a boulder illustrates his motivational drive to find and quench his thirst. When an individual experiences some form of bodily deficit (e.g., lack of food, water, sleep), they experience drive which motivates them to perform behaviors (eat, drink, sleep) that will remedy or satisfy the deficit(s) they are experiencing. According to Freud’s Drive Theory, all behavior is motivated and that the purpose of behavior is to satisfy needs. With regards to hunger and thirst, Freud would have thought the anxiety and worry about not having food or water would be considered the drive which would continue to occur until Chuck found something to eat and/or drink. After spending more time on the island, Chuck was able to figure out how to hunt for other food sources (e.g., fish, crab). To satisfy his need for water, Chuck drank from coconuts as well as collecting rainwater in a makeshift container of sorts.

Psychological needs include autonomy, competence, and relatedness. These types of needs are inherent in all humans. The movie best illustrates the psychological need for relatedness. Having a need for relatedness basically means that we humans want to feel connected to other people by developing and maintaining relationships with other people. Before the plane crash, Chuck’s need for relatedness was being satisfied through his relationships with his girlfriend, his family, and his coworkers. After the plane crash, Chuck lived in complete isolation. To somewhat fill this need, Chuck made a volleyball into his friend which he named Wilson. Wilson was the closest thing to social interaction Chuck experienced during his time on the island. What kind of surprised me in the movie was after he got back to Memphis, he didn’t seem to have too much trouble communicating with other people—he wasn’t afraid to talk to others. I would have expected to see Chuck experience a little anxiety when approached by people he hadn’t seen for almost four years.

Social needs include achievement, affiliation, intimacy, and power. The movie best illustrates the social need for achievement. Achievement is the desire to demonstrate some kind of high accomplishment. Chuck works for FedEx and is attempting to reduce shipping times all over the world. He has high goals set for FedEx to achieve a high standard in fast, reliable shipping. It’s quite obvious that Chuck loves his job and is very dedicated to achieving his goals—he was always working against the clock. Even when he became stranded on the island, it was almost like he remained dedicated to his job by picking up random FedEx packages as the drifted to shore. He even kept one unopened and returned it to the sender once he was rescued and back in Memphis.

M&E terms used: physiological needs, psychological needs, social needs, relatedness, achievement, hunger, thirst, drive, Freud’s Drive Theory, homeostasis, motivational states

There are certainly a lot of aspects of the movie Cast Away (2000) that involve the notion of motivation and emotion. Some of the more obvious types of motivation are both physiological and social needs. Although I will mention these scenes, I was more interested in the aspects of the movie that related to brain structures, emotion, and even some motivational questions that don’t have a clear answer.
The most obvious and prevalent motives that are witnessed by Chuck Noland are his physiological needs while being stranded on a deserted island. Both thirst and hunger needs drive Chuck to become extremely creative in his need to replenish vital nutrients in his body. Chuck’s thirst is something that needs to be satiated and he is willing to drink out of dirty puddles to do this. Also in the search for something to drink he tries very hard to open up coconuts by throwing, smashing, cutting and eventually drilling them to drink the contents. I found it interesting that Chuck mentions that coconut milk is a natural laxative but he is still willing to drink it because of his thirst. This also brings up the idea that if he has some form of diarrhea he is probably losing a lot of the water he consumes, because diarrhea will dehydrate you. This can only add to the thirst that he is experiencing.
The way that hunger is portrayed is quite similar to thirst. Chuck is willing to eat live fish and spends a lot of time to eventually create fire to cook a crab to satiate his hunger needs. Even more compelling than his eating habits on the island are his eating habits outside the island. In the beginning of the movie we see a large family eating a Christmas feast with a wide variety of food and lots of it. Coincidentally, Chuck’s physique is overweight due to all these outside influences on his eating motivation. On the island he is much slimmer do to the lack of food, but when he returns to the U.S. he does not eat nearly as much. We see in his hotel room that there is a large amount of food but he does not engorge himself with food. This could be perceived in two ways; that his body has reached homeostasis after being on the island or that we just don’t witness him eating lots of food after so much food deprivation.
The moment that Chuck was able to create fire was undoubtedly accompanied by a flood of dopamine into his brain. He is so happy that it is clear that those good feelings are coming from dopamine release. Other times that he could have been experiencing rushes of neurotransmitters would be when he is trying to paddle his raft over the waves to catch the ship that he saw. The fear of paddling out into these huge waves probably caused his body to release quite a bit of adrenaline to keep him going. Norepinephrine and endorphins could have also caused him to feel less pain when he slashed his leg on the coral.
There are certain times in the movie that it is clear that specific areas of the brain are being activated. In particular when Chuck wakes up in the middle of the night, when coconuts are falling and the portion of the port-a-potty washes up, this is due to his reticular formation awaking him to become alert. Certain areas of his brain must be quite active during the plane crash including the amygdala (detecting and responding to threat and danger) and the hippocampus (behavioral inhibition during unexpected events). I thought that one of the most intriguing aspects about Chuck is his lack of emotion. The only time we really see him emotional is after four years on the island when he gets mad at Wilson, tells him that he is scared and then his extraordinary grief at losing Wilson to the sea. Interacting with Wilson is a way for Chuck to fulfill is social needs and that motive to interact with someone or something even if it is an inanimate object like a volleyball.
We also see Chuck motivated in avoidance tendencies when it comes to his bodies well-being. He is very cautious to approach things on the island and he protects himself from further injury. He protects his feet with a sock full of leaves and a piece of his pants and then later with the shoes of one of the pilots. He also removes his own tooth to avoid a serious infection that could have resulted if he left it in.
Physiological Needs, Satiety, Thirst, Hunger, Homeostasis, Dopamine, Norepinephrine, Endorphins, Neurotransmitters, Reticular Formation, Emotion, Social Needs, Avoidance Tendencies

I felt as though Chuck Noland’s struggle while stranded on the island was a perfect example of meeting one’s own physiological needs. While there were many external events that Chuck had to face on the island, the island was uninhabited by any other humans. This created an atmosphere that was perfect for observing Chuck’s behavior as he attempted to meet his most basic physiological needs. Clearly, the focus of this movie is that of Chuck’s struggle to survive on a deserted island but other themes are present as well.

We are introduced to another character early on in the film, Kelly, who is Chuck’s girlfriend. Despite their conflicting schedules, Chuck never seizes to spend every minute of his spare time with her. It seems as though she is the only constant in his life. This is one example of relatedness, a psychological need. Evidence for this can be seen in multiple scenes in the film. In between visits to different countries, Chuck makes it his priority to attend to his girlfriend even if it means spending a meal together. This psychological motivation of relatedness is seen again during the plane crash as we watch Chuck unstrap himself from his seat to grab the pocket watch that Kelly gave him. This was likely a fight or flight response in the amygdala that triggered this behavior. This sentimental gift symbolizes his relatedness motivation. Chuck is a man that clearly values his interpersonal relationships. He is constantly traveling around the world meeting many new people every day. Now that he is on the island, to whom will he speak his thoughts to? As odd it may sound, Chuck conveys his thoughts to his new found friend, Wilson, a volleyball which he paints a face on with his own blood. Any person in this situation would long for someone to talk to. He fulfills his own relatedness need by talking to it for four years.

One of the questions asked when studying motivation and emotion is why does behavior vary in its intensity? This also refers to the term engagement. Shortly after Chuck gathers himself after waking up on the island, Chuck begins to look for something to drink. This is likely because of dehydration which can occur after losing significant amounts of body water. This is a prime example of Chuck meeting his physiological need. Other extraneous factors were probably distracting him from his non-homeostatic level, but when he realizes his body is deprived of water, he knows he needs to act quick The engagement of this behavior is extremely intense. We can see this as Chuck desperately tries to dig into a coconut to drink the milk inside. We later see him drinking moisture from leaves, and sip swamp water from a cave. While environment influences such as bad tasting water may stop people from drinking, Chuck clearly has a powerful physiological need that he must attend to.

Another internal need that Chuck must act on is Hunger. As he is continually deprived of food on the island, his ghrelin levels in his bloodstream rise. Ghrelin is a hormone that circulates through the bloodstream, alerting our hypothalamus to let us know we are hungry. Once again, we see Chuck intensely engaging in hunting behaviors in order to get food. We first see him unsuccessfully trying to spear a fish, and then gathering minnows with his makeshift fishing net. Despite the horrid taste, Chuck downs this less than nutritious fish to satisfy his hunger.

Dopamine is the neurotransmitter in our brain that simulates reward, or pleasure. A person’s mental and physical health greatly relies on levels of dopamine. After being stranded on the island for four years and experiencing a world of events, it would be hard to think of a time when Chuck’s dopamine levels were healthy. One moment that may have brought about dopamine is when he finally made fire. He had been working very hard at it for a long time and when he finally did, it clearly brought a sense of reward. I recall a scene where he was lying down at night, shining the flashlight on and off at a picture of Kelly. Surely this would have been rewarding as well. After so much time on the island with this little stimulation however, Chuck would become satiated and things like fire and a picture of Kelly would not make him as happy. Again at the end of the movie however, we see Chuck laying down looking at a picture of Kelly. Even after Chuck is rescued, you never once see him smile as the things that once made him happy are no longer there, not even Wilson.

Cast Away is prime example of one man’s struggle to fulfill his physiological, psychological, and social needs. As we attempt to gain an understanding of the science of motivation and emotion, we must first examine our basic motivations.

Terms: physiological needs, external factors, psychological motivation, relatedness, amygdala, engagement, homeostasis, deprivation, thirst, ghrelin, hypothalamus, hunger, dopamine, satiation

The main concept from this movie is a human’s physiological needs and how those needs influence our behaviors. The three main needs that the movie focused on while he was trapped on the island were the basic needs for survival: thirst, hunger, and sex. While the need for sex wasn’t apparent on the island, the need for companionship was. He created Wilson as a means of staying sane and not feel so isolated.
Each specific need drove Chuck’s behavior in a different way. The need to fulfill thirst has different drives than the need to fulfill a hunger drive. He used the resources he had and found to be innovative enough to create a shelter, clothes, shoes, a companion, and rope. His biological instincts came through supplied him with the necessary knowledge and drive to find a suitable shelter from the weather, find food and collect water, and make a fire. The body has a need to maintain homeostasis in order for the body to survive at it’s healthiest. Chuck Norton knew right away that he needed to way to store water and did so by using coconuts. This was the first form of food he relied on until he could figure out a means to catch food from the ocean. His body tried to maintain it’s homeostasis but because of the limited resources it readjusted itself.
Water is essential to the body after 24 hours. A human can survive longer without food than water. Water is necessary in maintaining the body and assist in cellular functions and without it the body will die. Our brains, specifically the hypothalamus, sends the body signals that tell the body if it has received too much or too little water. The hypothalamus sends a signal to the kidneys to either reserve water or to release it when fluid is low. The most important of the environmental influences is taste, especially when it comes to drinking. We have a tendency to drink more water if it tastes sweeter and less when it has a sour, salty, or bitter taste to it. This assisted Chuck in the movie because he always tasted the water before he drank it because of the salt content. He was surrounded by the ocean and he knew that drinking salty water would be harmful to him.
When it comes to hunger and the body there are short-term and long-term models. Short-term refers to ending our current hunger state and long-term refers to how our body stores energy and fats. When he first got to the island there was no way of knowing when or how he would get food or water so the body was priming itself to try to store water and food as much as possible. After so long, he got better at fishing and figured out ways to collect water so the need to conserve energy and water decreased. His hunger was even to the point of eating raw fish and crab.
The brain has many structures within it and each one plays a different role in daily life. The medial forebrain bundle is a pleasure center and is activated when something is pleasurable and acts as a reinforcement. When Chuck first created fire, his medial forebrain sent out a signal of pleasure and this act was a reinforcer because of the pleasurable signals that get sent every time this act occurs. The signal sent out is dopamine. This neurotransmitter can generate positive feelings which can help enhance creativity and problem solving. Dopamine was released when he first made shoes, when he opened the FedEx packages to find materials he could use, and when he first created fire.
Terms/Concepts: physiological needs, hunger, thirst, sex, need, instinct, homeostasis, hypothalamus, environmental influences, short-term hunger, long-term hunger, medial forebrain bundle, dopamine.

The first scene I wanted to loook at was When Charles invented Wilson and then eventually let him go. It was basically him trying to create normalcy out of isolation.When he let wilson drift away after he had choose to hold on or let go of the raft. It represented him letting go of his way of life on the island and moving on without the security of whats going to happen.
The main source of motivation for charles creating a friend out of an inanimate object was to have personal control and also the intrensic motivator of wanting to be home with people. The behavior of talking to Wilson appeared to intensify as time passed. It was a way for him to adapt to isolation for four years, it revealed that what he was missing the most was human contact.
Oxytocin, a hormone released during stressful events that causes the tend and befriend reaction which I think being stuck on an uninhabitted island qualifes as a stressful event which could cause him to feel a bond towards Wilson even though he wasn't a livving thing.

Charles was also trying to meeet his accquired psychsocilogical needs of social needs. The book said these remain dormant until an incentive arises. Obviously Charles most likely did not have a garage full of sports equipment that he had intimate relationships with prior to landing on the island. Charles incentive for creating Wilson was to create a new life on the island and be able to adapt to the isolation. It was propbaly also unconsiously motivated too.

The second scene was the most horrifying one where he cut out his tooth with an ice skate blade. A lot of people have the avoidance behavior about going to the dentist . That is until the physiological feeling of pain exceeds the avoidance behavior. Charles consistently avoided the dentist even though his tooth was causing him mild pain . After being on the islan he wanted almost nothing more than to go to the dentist because of the horrible pain and the fact there was non available. More time passed and the pain became unbearable which also interefered with his motivation to eat. So when Charles pain surpassed his fear of removing the tooth and ability to eat he had to remove it.

The third scene was when Charles talks about commiting suicide and admits he even tested it before he felt like a coward. Charles motivation to live and many others motivated him to live. He avoided killing himself because he didn't want to be paralyzed or have to wait to bleed to death which would be painful and obviously bring out an avoidance behavior. Charles had the physiological means to sustain life but he was lacking in the social needs fulfillment. At that one point his social needs surpassed the need to live, but ultimately were kept in check. I think it could have also been a step to feel like he had control of things.

Throughout this entire movie the physiological needs are evident but the social needs to seem almost overpowering which makes wou wonder what you would do if you were in that situation, I think I wouldnt care if I had enough food and water after I had been on the island isolated for more than three months

Terms used: pyshiological, psychological, social needs, hormone, oxytocin, avoidance behavior, personal control, adaption, accquired pschological needs.

I definitely viewed this movie differently as I watched it this time. Before, it was just a movie but now I can see just how motivated Chuck Noland (main character) was throughout much of the movie. It was really interesting to watch, and opened my eyes. One of the things I noticed was that he had a lot of internal motives throughout the whole movie. There are three main types of internal motives: needs, cognitions, and emotions. I would say that chuck was motivated my all three of these.
Needs: this would include the basic drive (to service bodily needs) to satisfy his hunger or thirst. At first, his hunger drive wasn’t as strong as some of this other needs because he had just eaten on the airplane. There were various ways throughout the movie where he tried to satisfy his thirst. He started with trying to open a coconut, but failed at this. When he realized this was not going to be as easy as he probably thought, his instincts kicked into high gear. He then found a leaf, and drank the water it had gathered (who would normally think of this? You would have to be pretty motivated I think). This kept going on and on, and he found more and more ways to satisfy his physiological drive of thirst. He went through the same things with hunger, and ended up using an ice-skate blade to try and catch fish.
Cognitions: this has to do with the motivation that comes from the way people think. It includes any thoughts, beliefs, or expectations we have that keep us going. For instance, if Chuck was thinking to himself “I am going to die out here if I don’t eat or drink something”, then he would be then motivated by his cognitions. Just telling himself he would die, would be enough motivation for him to do something (anything) to prevent that from happening. Another thought that probably crossed his mind was his love back home. If he kept telling himself that he may never see her again, that would be plenty of motivation to do whatever he had to. Part way into his time on the island, he lost hope of ever making it back home. Losing this drive to find a way back, he just gave up. He even tried to hang himself, but it didn’t work out so well for him. Eventually he regained his drive and wanted, again, to get home. By having this strong motivation to get home, it allowed him to be persistent in finding ways off of the island. And he tried many times to leave.
Emotions: this is what allows us to react adaptively to the important events in our lives. Getting stranded on this island would cause him to feel a threat to his life. Everything that happened to him (the plane crash, being stranded, etc) are all external events that he has no control over. These events gave him that drive to escape—no matter what. This is shown in practically everything he does; it all serves the purpose of getting him off of that island and back home again.
Instead of just focusing on the internal and external motives that he was facing, we can take a look inside the brain and see how that affects his motives. First, the hypothalamus is the main structure of the brain that deals with motivation. The hypothalamus is what regulates a range of important biological functions: eating, drinking, sex.
When looking at thirst and the brain, we learn that water is both intercellular (inside the cells) and extracellular (outside the cells). Because there are two sources of water in the body, there are two different ways in which you can be depleted of water: osmometric or volumetric. Chuck was dealing with osmometric thirst when he wasn’t able to find anything to drink. The hypothalamus comes into play by sending messages to the kidney to reserve water when it senses the supply is getting low. Then, the hypothalamus will create psychological state of feeling thirsty, which would have motivated Chuck to find water wherever he could.
Overall, there are a lot of different things going on inside Chuck’s body and brain which are motivating him to do whatever it takes to find food and water. Not only that, but he was facing a lot of other external events that all affected him differently: being stranded away from home, his toothache, and social isolation were all big ones. When it comes down to it, everything he did was because he had some motivation to do it. Some drive inside of him telling him to push harder, because he needs to survive.

Motivation Terms: internal motives; drive; needs; cognitions; emotions; physiological drive; external motives; hypothalamus; intercellular, extracellular; osmometric thirst; volumetric thirst; persistence;

The character Chuck Nolan begins the movie with a comfortable life; he has a girlfriend, a good job, lots of friends, and a promising future. As the movie progresses he experiences a catastrophe when the plane his on crashes during a storm off of its regular course. He then endures several psychological and physiological hardships. The two main physiological hardships he is forced to overcome are hunger and thirst. The first psychological hardships he is forced to overcome are that his body’s hypothalamus is putting him into fight or flight because of the crash. The next psychological hardship he endures is his hippocampus responding to the unfamiliar environment of the island. The last psychological hardship he is forced to deal with is the lack of relatedness with anybody while he is stranded.

The first hardship that he is forced to deal with is before and after his plane crashes into the ocean his hypothalamus is activating his flight or fight mode. It is hard to imagine how much epinephrine his body released during the crash activating the fight or flight. The only problem is that neither one will help him in his current situation; all that he can do is brace for impact. After the plane has crashed, he is underwater briefly before his raft inflates taking him to the surface. Once he is on the surface he is stuck in the middle of a huge storm with nowhere to go and nothing to do to save himself. Again, his hypothalamus was probably going crazy sending alerts to the endocrine system to fight or flight. During this scene Chuck looked like he was in physical pain from the lack of control or resolution to the current environmental conditions around.

The hardship that Chuck is faced with next is when he wakes up on an island in the middle of the ocean. At this point in time his hippocampus is analyzing the environment. His body goes into “not okay” or anxiety-ridden behavioral inhibition and his anxiety and attention rise in an attempt to figure out the current environment. When the hippocampus activates the “not okay” mode it releases endorphins to relax the brain but because Chuck is stranded on an island in the middle of the ocean it is going to take a while for him to come out of it. As he explores the island the anxiety is apparent but eventually starts to relax as his environment becomes more familiar.

The lack of relatedness that he experiences is the last psychological hardship he endures. Relatedness is defined as the psychological need to establish close emotional bonds and attachments with other people, and it reflects the desire to be emotionally connected to and interpersonally involved in warm relationships. Chuck has no one on the island to share emotional bonds or attachments with so he creates Wilson. Wilson fulfills Chuck’s need of relatedness by giving him something to grow those interpersonal emotional bonds with and giving him someone to share his experience with. In the character of Chuck’s eyes Wilson is a real person who he has established emotional bonds so when Wilson floats away in the ocean it is as if a person dies. The pain of losing Wilson appeared to take the drive and will out of Chuck as is shown when he doesn’t putt any effort into paddling like he did when he first left.

The first physiological need that Chuck has to fulfill is his thirst for water. Thirst is defined by the textbook as the consciously experienced motivational state that readies the body to perform behaviors necessary to replenish a water deficit. Thirst motivates Chuck to hurl coconuts at a rock wall in an attempt to break them open and drink the water like substance inside. His attempts are very hurried as his body is likely suffering from cellular dehydration and is very motivated to get hydrated again. The most important environmental influence for drinking is taste according to the book. In Chuck’s situation his thirst has propelled him past any influences other than his extreme thirst for water being satisfied. This is highlighted by the scene in the movie where Chuck is in the cave lying on his stomach drinking from a grayish pool of water on the ground.

Hunger is the last physiological need that Chuck has to fulfill. The textbook defines hunger loosely as a “depletion-repletion” model that is activated food deprivation. Chuck attempts to fulfill this need by chasing fish around in the shallow water of the beach with a sharp stick. Eventually he gains more control of his hunger and tries to gain food in smarter way. It is likely that he was experiencing maximum hunger with almost no food left in his stomach. This could cause him to be highly motivated to fulfill his hunger and satisfy his empty stomach.

Psychological, Physiological, Hunger, Thirst, Hypothalamus, Hippocampus, Relatedness, Epinephrine, Endocrine System, Anxiety-Ridden Behavioral Inhibition, Anxiety, Motivation, Cellular Dehydration, Taste, Depletion-Repletion model, Food Deprivation.

As we all know, Chuck’s plane crashes. During the crash, Chuck’s hypothalamus was controlling his autonomic nervous system, which thankfully was doing all the breathing and heart beating for him automatically. Chuck floats around on an inflatable boat for an extended period of time. During this time his hypothalamus generated some much needed relaxation (parasympathetic activation) so he could get some rest after such a traumatic experience. He becomes stranded on a deserted island. After only a few days, he creates Wilson. Wilson was a volleyball Chuck found in a FedEx package that obtained a face via Chuck’s bloody hand. Chuck creates Wilson for many reasons. Although it looks like he has gone crazy by continuously talking to a volleyball, his brain is actually keeping Chuck engaged. He is behaviorally enganged because he is persistent in his effort to “carry on a conversation” with Wilson. He is emotionally engaged because as humans we enjoy and need the presence of other humans. Chuck is cognitively engaged because this strategy to create someone to talk to keeps his social needs in somewhat more of an equilibrium. Also, Chuck now has voice by participating in a “conversation” and saying out loud what his goals are.
When Chuck becomes hungry, he begins to search for something edible. The first thing he finds is a coconut. The next scene involved him continuously and relentlessly throwing a coconut at a large rock. This seems to go on forever. His persistent behavior is motivated by drive in order to satisfy his body’s needs. He is so hungry that his stomach has manufactured the hormone ghrelin and released it into the bloodstream. As his blood made its way up to his brain, Chuck’s hypothalamus detected the ghrelin and created the psychological experience of being hungry. Whilst stranded, I highly doubt Chuck’s body created very much leptin, a hormone created by fat tissue to tell the brain he is full. However, upon receiving any form of food the biochemical agent, dopamine, was released to stimulate the limbic structures of the brain to create a positive feeling.
During one of the first few nights, Chuck hears something on the island that sounds like an animal walking around and sniffing. It is pitch black so he cannot see what it might be. During this time, Chuck’s amygdale was detecting and responding to a possible threatening event. He showed emotional fear and defensive behavior by sinking lower into the boat and holding the paddle up as a defensive weapon, though nothing happened he was alert and ready.
After being stranded for so long Chuck becomes depressed. He shows this by creating a noose in order to hang himself of the highest cliff on the island. The part of his brain involved in this decision and mood was his anterior cingulated cortex because it is involved in making choices and one’s day-to-day mood. Chuck must have had decreased activity in this part of his brain.
Finally, he builds a sturdy enough boat to sail the ocean and take his chances of being rescued out there. He is rescued and rehabilitated into his old lifestyle somewhat. During a welcome back party, there is a large amount of food available to him. When he stumbles upon crab legs, he picks one up, looks at it, and puts it down because as he likes crab legs, he did not currently want them. Wanting is the motivational state that one gets before obtaining the reward and Chuck most likely does not want crab legs because it’s one of the only foods he’s been able to eat in the past four years.
I have to admit I have never before seen this movie start to finish and I thought it was fantastic. At first the scenes that would go on forever because he was trying to accomplish something and continuously failing annoyed me; however, after getting more into the movie I realized just exactly how real they made the movie. Everything from the plane crashing to being lost back in the real world was captivating.

Terms I used: Autonomic nervous system, parasympathetic activation, engagement, behavioral engagement, emotional engagement, cognitive engagement, voice, drive, ghrelin, hypothalamus, leptin, dopamine, amygdale, anterior cingulated cortex, liking, wanting.

Cast away is a movie about Chuck Noland, an average American man whose plane crashes leaving him stranded alone on an island in the middle of the pacific. He is left with only himself to rely to gather the resources he needs to survive. Chuck is on the island for several years, and during this time he adapts to his surroundings and is able to get his most basic needs met enough to allow him to survive. Cast Away, is a depiction of physiological, psychological, and emotional needs that humans posses and demonstrates how our minds and bodies constantly drive us to meet those needs, that we often take for granted when they are always being met. It is only when these needs are not met that we notice how our behaviors alter in order to find fulfillment.
In the beginning of the movie, Chuck is very intrinsically motivated to do his job to the best of his ability. He finds ways to be as efficient as possible to get packages delivered during the busy holiday season. During these first couple scenes Chuck’s coworkers give him a hard time about stealing a bike from a child when his FedEx truck breaks down. This idea simply shows Chuck’s intrinsic drive to be successful in his work and we even see him going to great efforts to get his employees to feel and behave the same way.
One of the things I think Cast Away show is how we take our physiological needs for granted. However, when they are not being met, they are all we can focus on. This is illustrated in one of the first scenes of the movie we see Chuck, Kelly, and a bunch of people enjoying Christmas dinner. The movie shows them passing plates upon plates of food around the table. I think that this scene demonstrates the over-indulgence that Americans so often participate in. During these first segments of the movie, we also see that Chuck is somewhat overweight as a result of this American lifestyle. I think that to an extent, this scene in the movie depicts how social context and environmental influence affect our behaviors. We eat a lot at a holiday dinner not because we are that hungry or need that much food but rather, it is tradition that that is what we do on those holidays. The book even states that we eat even more when we are around people; it also says that group pressure is stronger than our physiology.
Physiological needs seem to be instinctual. Chuck instinctively takes steps to preserve his life. He does this when the plane crashes, then throughout the rest of the movie while he’s getting food and water. We see him drinking water off of leaves, and there’s a scene where he’s throwing the coconuts up against the rock trying to crack them open just to drink the coconut milk. Once he discovers a way to get them open he is careful not to waste a drop of it; for much of the movie this is one of the very few resources he has. Additionally, Chuck begins to adapt and starts to create tools to aid him in his survival techniques. This demonstrates how our bring sends messages through neurotransmitters that cause behaviors that will preserve life. Chuck even becomes better at hunting and gathering food.
For much of the movie, Chuck experiences food deprivation, and is not able to reach homeostasis, which then causes a ghrelin release. There is no negative feedback sent because Chuck is not able to become satiated at this point in the movie. The release of ghrelin lets Chuck know that he needs food to satiate his body and therefore meet his needs to live. Additionally, Chuck lost a lot of weight while on the island; therefore the ghrelin release was likely higher. Chapter 3 discusses how ghrelin levels in the bloodstream are significantly higher in “dieters”. While Chuck is not exactly on a diet the lack of appropriate nutrients is likely to cause this same effect.
I thought it was really interesting at the end when Chuck is in the hotel room with a mass amount of food. At this point he doesn’t even seem to want it, as he has been food deprived for so long. We see him analyze the crab legs and the lighter- something that we so often take for granted (food and fire), and see how he seems emotionless. I found this scene to be very intriguing. It also made me think back to the beginning when Chuck rewards the young boy’s efficiency in bringing his package to him with a Snicker’s Bar. He opens up a backpack full of candies and offers it to him as a reinforcer of his behavior. I really thought this depicted how we use food as a reward or as something we deserve rather than as something we need to stay alive. I think this whole idea shows the difference between cognitive and physiological control.
Cast Away also depicts different emotions that are felt by someone who is in a disastrous situation. When Chuck first gets to the island we see a couple scenes during which Chuck is very jumpy and kind of scared. The amygdala in his brain regulates emotions, therefore the scary event of the plane crash and the loneliness of the island likely triggered his amygdala to send out defensive emotions, which led to his behaviors.
The scene which shows Chuck trying to make a fire is very intriguing. It shows him for a long time, trying to get this job done and he attempt several different ways. He becomes very upset. In this scene the failure to make a fire triggers an area of the amygdala that led him to feel emotional anger. Lastly, when he finally is able to make fire we see one of the few instances in which Chuck experiences good feelings. Clearly, in this scene there is a large release of dopamine that makes him exceedingly happy, as this event is something he was not able to previously accomplish.
One of the other important aspects of the movie is Chuck’s social needs. He forms a relationship with a volleyball which he names “Wilson”. He communicates with Wilson frequently about his plan and makes up that Wilson is talking back to him. He forms such a relationship with him that when he loses him it is actually a very heartbreaking scene. The viewer can relate to Chuck’s need for interaction, because this is something we constantly strive for. We look for acceptance and social interaction in almost every aspect of our lives; I think that having a relationship with Wilson helped Chuck keep his sanity to an extent.

ME Terms: Physiological needs, psychological needs, social needs, amygdala, homeostasis, negative feedback, emotional anger, dopamine, emotions, intrinsic motivation, drive, behavior, social context, environmental influence, food deprivation, ghrelin release, satiation, reinforcer.

The movie Cast Away is one that is filled with examples of basic human motivation, it lets us see what causes motivation on its most basic level, as well as what that motivation can do for someone.

Chuck was stranded on an island by himself for four years. I would like to discuss several key points in the movie. The scene I would like to mention is when Chuck first washes up on shore. He is alone and the gravity of the situation is sinking in. His goal in life was to achieve social recognition, a marriage, and efficiency. This released dopamine in his brain. When he was on the island, that all changed. Before, Chuck’s physiological needs were being met without a second thought. Chuck’s psychological need to gather food and drink to satisfy his physiological needs was instinctual and an afterthought. This allowed him to move up Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. When food and drink were scarce resources, this immediately created an acute awareness of these needs and he moved down Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Survival was more important, and the release of dopamine would come from different things. According to Freud’s Drive Theory and Hull’s Drive Theory, this food deprivation causes the body to become weak, and creates a psychological discomfort or anxiety. This stimulates action in our bodies to attempt to correct this discomfort. This energy was called drive. The drive provides motivation to change our situation. Behavior-guiding habits would become how we would attempt to change our situation.

Chuck immediately felt thirsty and hungry. This caused him to go search for something to bring him to more of a satiated state regarding hunger and thirst. He found the coconuts that helped him do that.

The next moment was Wilson and Fire. Using the Drive models, Chuck was motivated to create fire to help him cook his food and satisfy a need to eat something other than coconuts. He was not getting all of the nutrition that he needed. He first attempted behavior to start a fire that he learned from movies or anecdotally. After learning that this would not work, he kept trying until he found a way that would work.

Wilson was a volleyball that Chuck talked to. He used it to keep him company and bounce ideas off of. This helped him maintain his sanity and continue to use his cerebral cortex. This is the part of the brain that helps in goal setting, learning, making plans, and formulating intentions. This let him figure out the tide patterns, wind, and what he needed to do to get off of the island.

There are generally two types of structures that people use to talk about the brain: Approach-oriented structures like the Hypothalamus, medial forebrain bundle, cerebral cortex and Avoidance-oriented structures like the amygdale and hippocampus. When Chuck was on the island, he was thinking using both structures. He wanted to eat and drink and continue living. He was fearful of not being able to do those things. He wanted to get back home, but he was afraid that he would never get back.

The movie was a great example of basic needs that humans have and how that relates to our behavior and motivation.

Terms: Physiological Needs, Psychological Needs, Freud’s Drive Theory, Hull’s Drive Theory, Drive, Dopamine, Thirst, Hunger, Satiated State, Cerebral cortex, Approach Oriented Structure, Avoidance Oriented Structure.

Blog on Cast Away
In the beginning of the movie Cast Away the Character Chuck seems intrinsically motivated by controlling his life and his job through the use of time. This is evident in the opening where he states that “time rules over us we live or die by the clock.” His life seems to be based on his beeper going off letting him know that it’s time to go, he and Kelly actually schedule their time together using their planners or calendars and then they exchange Christmas gifts on the way to the airport. This reveals the engagement extent through his behavior which is almost totally focused on time, his extensive effort and persistence is also based on the clock (p.12).
The controlling and emphasis of time in this movie reveals the expression of motivation through Chuck’s behavior and greatly supports the eight aspects of behavior. This specifically is seen in what Chuck pays attention to, the effort he puts into using time wisely while being persistent in choosing to make the most of the time spent between Kelly and his job (p.11). I would interpret Chuck’s motivation as the books states, that motivation cannot be separated from the social context because it is embedded in it (p.69).
After the crash Chuck has no control over time and his motivation is based on the physiological needs of a biological hunger and thirst (this could also be stated as Freud’s Drive theory). If it were not for the physiological needs Chuck would have given up and died; he wanted to kill himself and he couldn’t even control that. These needs took some substantial time to adapt to and his homeostatic mechanism probably had to find a new balance before the negative feedback that allows satiety was restored.
The beauty in this movie (to me) is that through the losses and powerlessness that Chuck experienced he resolves that he was grateful that he had Kelly with him on the island and that he knew he had to “keep breathing because the sun will rise tomorrow and who knows what the tide will bring.” This is based out of Chucks last four years of experience with himself and what he knows he is capable of doing. His motivation is more internally based; the day-to-day events are now his choice and may very well be more intrinsically motivated than ever before but not on controlling time. I understood the point of his motivation at the end of the movie to be the experience or opportunities before him as he stood at a cross roads in his life.

M & E terms: Intrinsic motivation, engagement extent, eight aspects of behavior, focus, effort, persistence, emphasis, attention, motivation in social context, physiological needs, internal motivation, day-to-day events
Freud's Drive Theory.

The movie Cast Away is a great movie to analyze in terms of motivation and emotion because he is stranded on an island. Being stranded on an island forces Chuck Noland to essentially start from scratch to fulfill his needs. It is very interesting to watch how Chuck’s motivation allows him to adapt to this entirely new environment.
When Chuck first awakes his dominant motive is focused on gathering the packages and getting off that island. He seems to be highly engaged in the behaviors that he displays when he is gathering the packages and etching HELP into the sand. Chuck at this time is probably hungry and especially thirsty but his motivation is dominated by the idea that he needs to draw attention to the island in order to be rescued. The behavior that Chuck displays, (tactics to draw attention to the island), are so intense that he does not realize that his body will need to be hydrated soon. The direction of Chuck’s behavior changes towards sundown. His body is physically exhausted and now his motivation in directed towards sleep.
In the morning when Chuck realizes that the noises that he heard throughout the night were falling coconuts his motivation is quickly directed towards quenching his thirst. This is an example of an extraorganismic mechanism because it was the environment, (coconut) that then directs his motivation towards fulfilling his thirst. It becomes evident that Chuck is determined to find a way to crack the coconut. His motivation is driven with such intensity it is clear that it is the dominant motive until he rehydrates, rightfully so. If he does not hydrate his body the lack of oxygen and blood flow could cause shock, coma, and eventually death. The intensity of his motivation is from psychological drive, initiated by his biological need for water. The rate at which Chuck is losing water is increasing at a rapid rate. Chuck’s goal-directed behavior led him to successfully cracking the coconut however he was only able to intake little to no milk due to the method of cracking it open. Even this little amount of milk likely initiated a major dopamine release. Due to Chuck’s circumstance it had likely been a while since he experienced satisfaction from a dopamine release. This release only intensified his motivation thus allowing him to find an efficient method for cracking the coconut.
Once Chuck has become satiated from fulfilling his need for thirst his motivation is directed towards searching the island. When Chuck finds the co-pilot dead he provides a proper burial. Even though he is on a deserted island he chooses to bury the co-pilot versus simply placing him out of sight. Chuck most likely chooses to bury the co-pilot because of previous extraorganismic mechanisms, more specifically cultural influences.
Chuck does adapt to his new environment in order to survive. His hunger motivated him to become an expert as spearing fish. In his previous environment Chuck would not have to learn how to fish in order to eat, he might just visit Red Lobster. Because his environment changed he was also forced to adapt. He was also was forced to collect water in advance. He also became very good at tracking time and being able to predict when the tide is high or low. In order to fulfill his hunger he had to be efficient at starting fires. When Chuck arrives home he is forced to adapt to society and social interaction. In one of the final scenes Chuck realizes that he cannot have Kelly and he must adapt to this idea. Kelly was Chuck’s main motivation to not commit suicide on that island, and finding a way to get off that island. The motivation that Kelly provided would be extrinsic because she is an outside factor.
There were a few scenes where Chuck expressed happiness and excitement due to a dopamine release. Due to his circumstance the releases of dopamine will be initiates on completely different terns. For example when Chuck finally is able to start a fire he expresses pure joy. Because Chuck was not getting sufficient nutrients his hunger became overwhelming and soon became the dominant motivation. Starting the fire is a huge success because it ensures his survival. Another example of a major release of dopamine is when Chuck finds the material for a sail. This is his way off that island! The motivation is very intense and dominant. For months Chuck works all day at making rope and the actual raft. He is full engaged in this behavior. He also has extrinsic motivation from the picture of Kelly to get home. These behaviors are unique because they would not normally provide a great dopamine release but because of his environment his motivation has a completely different direction.
For the most part Chuck is able to meet his physiological needs. In order to fulfill his hunger and thirst needs his behavior adapts through motivation. His psychological needs were not completely fulfilled. By being on a stranded island Chuck was able to experience autonomy. Chuck fully demonstrated that he was competent by creating fire, cracking the coconuts in an efficient method, and by learning to spear fish. He was not able to fulfill his relatedness need. He began a relationship with a volley ball, named Wilson, as an attempt to fulfill this need. Chuck’s social needs were mostly fulfilled with a sense of achievement by his many accomplishments. However intimacy was lacking. There was no one around to fulfill this social need. Thus he became highly motivated to fulfill this need with Kelly and was eventually able to get off the island. Although Chuck was not able to fulfill this need with Kelly it is what motivates Chuck to go on and deliver the package that never made it.

Terms; motivation engagement, motivation intensity, psychological drive, physiological drive, biological need, dopamine release, thirst, behavior, extraorganismic mechanism, extrinsic motivation

The movie “Cast Away” is about a man who got stranded alone on an uninhabited island as a result of a plane crash. Chuck Noland, the main character in the film, learned to sustain himself for four years on the island before he ventured into the ocean on a raft he built himself to find help. This film showed many aspects of physiological needs including physiological drive, thirst, hunger, and even sex.

When Chuck awoke on the island, his first concern was to find other people and get help. When that failed and hours passed, his psychological drive (thirst) directed him to search for a way to open coconuts he found to be able to drink the water they contained. He was and tried several methods of getting the coconuts open throughout the movie, such as throwing them against rocks, using broken rocks to cut into them, and using ice skates to slice them open. If it was not for his internal psychological drive to satiate his thirst, he most likely would have given up before finding a solution. Chuck was also shown drinking dirty water in some scenes in the film. Chuck was clearly in a desperate situation and his physiological need to replenish his body with water was overriding the desire for it to come from a sanitary source.

Chuck is shown eating live fish, crabs, and the meat of coconuts throughout the film. Chuck was obviously disgusted the first time he cracked open a crab leg and when he tried eating a live fish. Because Chuck had been on the island for so long without his normal access to food sources, the fat cells in his body were significantly reduced causing him to feel persistent hunger. Chuck had to go to extreme lengths to be able to feed himself during the time he was stranded in order to keep his body at homeostasis and fulfill his physiological needs.

One could say that Chuck was sexually motivated to stay alive on the island. He had proposed to Kelly, his girlfriend, right before the plane crash and it was made clear that he thought about her throughout his entire time on the island. The picture Chuck had of Kelly was one of his most treasured items and he was shown replicating her picture in paintings. His attraction to Kelly (a young, slender, attractive mate) was a strong motivation for Chuck to find a way to get himself off the island. His desire to be reunited with his fiancé kept him going when he might have otherwise had no desire to keep on living.

Concepts: psychological need, psychological drive, thirst, hunger, homeostasis, sex (physical attractiveness), motivation

Watching Cast Away from a psychology perspective, I picked up on a lot of things dealing with motivation and emotion. Chuck Noland (played by Tom Hanks) had many internal motives as well as external events. The three categories of internal motives are needs, cognitions, and emotions. A need is “a condition within an individual that is essential and necessary for maintenance of life and for nurturance of growth and well-being” (Reeve). There are three main types of needs: physiological, psychological, and social; however, Cast Away focuses mostly on physiological needs, which will be discussed later. Chuck had a variety of cognitions, or thoughts, about his time on the island and they changed over time. There were also a wide range of emotions portrayed throughout the movie. At times Chuck was depressed because he was stuck on the island, but he also felt excited especially when he finally made fire. I could differentiate these emotions by how Chuck expressed them. An expression is “how we communicate our emotional experience publicly to others” (Reeve). When the island was taking a toll on Chuck’s body, physiological preparedness kicked in, which means the way his body kicked into gear to meet the demands of his surroundings. There were also many external events that motivated Chuck to act in some of the ways he did. Most of these events were environmental; for example, the weather was usually unpredictable and the tides were up and down. Chuck finally grasped when the weather/tides would change with the amount of time he spent on the island.
Physiological needs played a huge part in this movie. The two that hit home were hunger and thirst. There are two main categories of hunger: short-term and long-term; in terms of the movie Cast Away, long-term hunger played a bigger role. Chuck had to have drive and use his instincts to find food. Due to his lack of know-how on the island, he had to use trial and error to finally retrieve food that would somewhat suffice. This occurred when he was trying to catch fish with the spear he made. He also succeeded in opening the coconuts after a few attempts. Thirst was the other need that was met in the movie. Chuck had to be creative on how to receive water. I would have never thought to look in the leaves on the ground for rain water if I were in his situation, so he had good instincts with that. Most of his thirst was osmometric (dehydrated cells); however, when he would get sick or get a cut and bleed that was considered volumetric thirst. During the entire four years he was on the island, Chuck tried to keep his body in homeostasis or equilibrium, but that is hard with the limited amount of resources. Chuck learned to use different materials creatively and became very handy with what he could find.
The brain structures and their neurotransmitters played a large part in Chuck’s responses throughout the movie. Chuck’s fat-cells were shrinking in size, which then sent a message to the hypothalamus to release the hormone called ghrelin to signal that it is time to eat. Another brain structure that was active during this movie was the amydala. Whenever Chuck would hear a noise at night and he would jump and become alert, that would be his amydala avoiding danger. During the scene when Chuck is finally able to make fire, the hypothalamus realizes that an unexpected pleasant event has occurred and releases a huge dose of dopamine, which generates a good feeling. This explains why he is so expressively happy. Along the lines of social needs, being isolated on an island by yourself after such a traumatic event can impact your reality. Because of the lack of people around him, Chuck’s hypothalamus released a dose of oxytocin also known as the “tend and befriend response” as befriended a volleyball named Wilson.
Willpower was a major factor in a lot of the actions Chuck took. A person in the normal world would think twice about doing things that Chuck did on a regular basis. One instance was when he was using the tulle to fish and caught a tiny one. He looked at it for a minute and with a sour look, shoved it in his mouth, and ate it because he had not made fire yet. He also had to have willpower to drink the puddle water he found in the cave. Finally, after discovering a large piece of plastic from a port-a-potty, Chuck decides to build a raft and attempt to escape the island. After four years, you would think a person would just accept they will be stuck on the island forever. Chuck, on the other hand, had the drive and willpower to go home. He did not know what or who would be waiting for him, but he knew he had to try.

ME Terms: internal motives, needs, cognitions, emotions, physiological preparedness, expression, external events, will (willpower), instinct, drive, neurotransmitters, ghrelin, dopamine, hypothalamus, amygdala, hormones, oxytocin, physiological needs, psychological needs, social needs, homeostasis, hunger, thirst, osmometric thirst, volumetric thirst

Aristoteles said, To live alone one must be an animal or a god. The magnificent interpretation of Tom Hanks in this film makes us feel the deep pain of the loneliness of living on a desert island.
For me, if anything this movie is speaking of instinct. To adapt to the demands of the environment, to use every resource available to survive, by eating roots and fish, protected from rain with branches or whatever you find. People need to rest, and may go mad alone.
On a desert island, how can you talk to someone? Inventing, pulling it out of your mind like a ball chuck noland wilson transforms into something with life. In my opinion this movie speaks of the capacity of survival and adaptation of the human being and as a person as noland in principle destined to die on the island is able to forget everything and concentrate on reaching the end of day one day after another. It is the instinct of darwin speaking we see in Chuck Noland.
Is the survivability of a man, is the only thing we left when we have nothing. When hope leaves us, we have the instinct to survive ,that motivation that never abandons us ..... or on a deserted island.
ME terms:Instinct,Darwin,social nedds,fisiological needs,to adapt to environment.

Throughout the movie, Chuck experiences many physiological, psychological, and social needs, along with numerous types of cognitive and behavioral engagement. Engagement can be identified as a specific behaviors intensity, emotional quality, and personal involvement during a given activity. From the start of the movie, Chuck is engaged cognitively. Being a FedEx worker, his goal is to figure out strategies given a certain situation to deliver packages as fast as he can. He also emits a great deal of self-concern into getting other people around him, his coworkers, to want to deliver the same service. Once the plane crashes, Chuck continues to stay cognitively engaged, after all in a situation like this if you don’t keep your mind right you most likely won’t keep your life, in most survival activities he does; Such as finding the basic needs, food, shelter and water. An even more important factor with Chuck keeping himself cognitively engaged would be how he used the things he had and found and devised a plan on how to make them work for his situation, examples being the use of his shirt as shoes, making weapons and utensils, and most importantly his raft which was his ticket off the island.
Obviously in order to survive on a deserted island Chuck had to be more than cognitively engaged, and that’s what leads me into his behavioral engagements. In order to survive on a deserted island someone would obviously not only need to be mentally stable (using that term broadly in this case) but behaviorally stable as well. From the beginning when Chuck couldn’t get the fire started, even after badly injuring his hand, I thought of the phrase; when you don’t succeed try again, Chuck then sat back and easily could have given up but he used both engagements and eventually got his fire started. He also had to eat; you can’t live off of plants and coconut water for very long, so in this case Chuck had to find a way to catch fish and other types of animals around him. Coming back to a crucial part in the story Chuck had to be behaviorally engaged when he built the raft that eventually led to his rescue, after all he had been pondering the thought of sailing away from the island for years, cutting down trees, climbing to the tallest cliff, and making the decision to use up the rest of his supplies in order to build a durable raft, not to mention every other aspect of living on a desert island would take a lot of effort, persistence and courage.
So why or how does someone become and stay behaviorally or cognitively engaged? The obvious reason that Chuck was engaged behaviorally and cognitively is because he had several needs that had to be satisfied. When referring to Needs, I’m not talking about needing the new Iphone5 that everyone is going ballistic over, needs are any condition a person experiences that is crucial to live, grow, and be well. I would say that Chuck’s main need in the beginning would have been psychological because as the plane crashed, Chuck had a physiological desire to get above water, the need to breath, and the desire to get away from the plane that is on fire and going deeper into waters that are pitch black in the middle of nowhere. His adrenaline obviously registered fear into him and told him to get above water in the quickest way possible. One Chuck came to and realized where he was and what had occurred; his need for food and water became apparent, the chemical Ghrelin, along with numerous other ones, released out of his stomach and into his bloodstream which carried it to his brain registering that he needed food, and obviously the recognition of thirst came from his cells becoming dehydrated resulting in a thirst quenching emotion or thought. Mentally, physically and technically chemically Chuck realized he needed to satisfy these urges, he then found coconuts and after much struggle cognitively figured out how to open the coconuts which eventually fulfilled that need of hunger and thirst. At first Chuck lived underneath the raft he used from the airplane as a form of shelter, but physiologically Chuck realized he needed a better form a shelter with the harsh weather at night, the rain, the sun, etc.
The most severe need would have been physiologically, especially later on in the movie and that would have been relatedness, someone who was sharing his experiences with him and someone he could confide in. It was just Chuck on the island for four years, this made me relate to a time in which I got up, got ready for my day, drove to my dad’s house, and then was shocked because I hadn’t said one word since I had been awake, 2 hours, not one word came out of my mouth and I felt completely overwhelmed and somewhat lost. So when Chuck, technically made Wilson and can see how in order to stay sane you would have to emit a behavior that in a normal society would be considered insane. Wilson obviously became a person to Chuck, he had emotional and deep rooted feelings for him, him being a volleyball; but that was his only way of communication, and even though he never got talked back to having the ability to voice his feelings, concerns, troubles, with someone is what kept him from going crazy, essentially in this way he was his own therapist; stating a problem, and then answering and debating with himself over that problem. I found that in the use of the locket Kelly gave him it let him reassure himself that there’s life outside of these walls and not only life but there is love; what better motivation is there for some people than love. Looking these physiological needs you can also see how they can be social needs as well. We as humans, for the most part need some type of affiliation, belonging, self-worth. With Wilson he may have been a ball, but he was obviously a social crutch for Chuck, could he have gotten the same feelings from a stick he found on the ground; it’s hard to say, but in reality I feel as if Wilson carried Chuck though those four years on the island, and in the end could this have been the reason the movie ends with Chuck on a dirt road figuring out his destination, could that package have been his guardian angel.

Looking at the big picture behind motivations and emotions, there was no doubt other factors that effected Chucks decision making while on and off the island. One very big and complicated one would have been the bodies use and production of chemicals. Our body constantly releases chemicals that can cause us, or have a role, in the way we think and behave. The plane crashing made his body release adrenaline telling his body to get out of the water and survive our fight or flight response; no pun intended there. The hypothalamus had to cope and release chemicals such as epinephrine, norepinephrine, to stimulate the body because he was now in a new environment and needed new ways to survive. Dopamine was released when good things happened, like starting the fire, catching fish, drinking fresh water, and building a sturdy raft, all in all with these good feelings and the dopamine release it pushed him to want to further succeed.
I thought this movie was a great way to incorporate different parts of our brains and body in the way we think of motivations and emotions, before while watching this movie I would just go along with the plot and not have much concern on why he was doing these things, now its quite fascinating to actually sit back and think about the behaviors, the emotions, the motivations that take place with every situation we face in our lives.

Terms: adrenaline, norepinephrine, dopamine, Physiological, psychological, social needs, behavioral and cognitive engagement, needs, ghrelin , intimacy, affiliation, deficiency, relatedness, fight or flight, hypothalamus.