One of most prevalent concepts that I noticed while watching the movie Cast Away was the emphasis on needs. All three classifications of needs can be seen in the movies. These are physiological needs, psychological needs and social needs.

The main character Chuck gets stranded on an island in the Pacific following a plane crash. The most obvious need that Chuck faces is his physiological needs for thirst and hunger. Chuck tries several times before successfully breaking a coconut to get milk. He is also shown in a later scene drinking water from a puddle in a cave. Chuck need for hunger is shown by him fishing and catching crabs.

The psychological needs that are demonstrated in the film are autonomy, competence and relatedness. Chuck clearly did not have a since of autonomy in the environment he was in. He did not feel like he had control over the environment. He did not have volition or freedom in the island where he resided for four years. He also had an external perceived locus of causality. Chuck was initially controlled by the environment rather than having an internal locus of causality over his own behavior. He had little perceived choice over his food source, weather, or health while he was on the island. He did everything he needed in order to survive. At one point in the film he contemplated suicide because he thought that that was his only escape. Chuck tells a psychologist later in the film “I couldn’t even kill myself the way I wanted to...I had control over nothing”. This quoted does a great job of describing that he was desperate for autonomy and control over his environment, but he had none. Chuck had a since of helplessness.

The second psychological need present in the film was competence. When chuck was faced with challenges, he had to develop skills in order to meet his psychological need for hunger. Chuck was able to stab a crab with a stick and threw a spear several feet away in order to catch a large fish. Being able to stab a fish rather that fish using a net demonstrates extreme competence. He would have experienced flow when his skill level was able to properly meet the difficulty level of hunting for food. He received feedback by satisfying his physiological need for hunger.

The need for relatedness is shown my Chucks relationship with the volleyball he names Wilson. Wilson is simply a bloody handprint on a ball that looked like a face. Although most people would not view this as a close and emotional bond, it was the only one that Chuck had while he was alone on the island. He had conversations with Wilson and genuinely cared about his well-being. Chuck found Wilson even after punting him off a ledge and swam after him when Wilson was finally lost in the Ocean. When Wilson was gone Chuck experienced sadness by crying and apologizing.

One social need in the film was Chuck’s need for achievement. Achievement is a desire to do well relative to a standard of excellence. Chuck had one goal while on the island and that was to leave as quickly as possible. Chucks initial idea was to write HELP in the sand so that a plane could discover him. This idea failed to achieve his goal. He knew he would need to work harder and put forth more effort if he was going to be successful at getting home. Chuck was faced with a difficult task so he had to be creative and use the tools that were at his disposal. Chuck used parts of the tree to tie down sticks for a raft and used a port-a-potty that washed up on land as a sail. The reason Chuck was finally successful is that he put forth great effort and persisted for a long period of time.

An overwhelming theme in the movie was Chuck’s social need for intimacy with his girlfriend Kelly. This was arguably the most important motivational factor that kept him alive and determined to return home. When Chuck returned home at the end of the movie many of his needs were satisfied, but he one need that he lacked and desired the most was missing. This was the need for a close, intimate relationship with Kelly. There was one particular scene where Chuck is shown flickering the light and looking and Kelly’s picture. This is reminiscent of when he was on the island and therefore showing that he would rather be in an uncomfortable life with hope of love than a comfortable world where he lacked intimacy.

Physiological needs: thirst and hunger, Psychological needs: autonomy, competence, relatedness, volition, perceived locus of causality, volition, perceived choice, flow, helplessness, feedback, hope. Social needs: intimacy, achievement

The movie "Cast Away" includes many aspects from our class discussion and many contests from the book.
The main things that I could easily observe in this movie is the three principle of needs such as physiological, psychological, and social needs. Also, we see how motivated Chuck is to survive, get food etc.
Physiological needs like hunger, thirst and sex. The first couple days and nights he did not experience the hunger and thirst because of the shock of what happened and where he is, but then the physiological needs was so strong that he had to start looking for something to drink and eat. So, he at first discovered the coconut milk, he struggled how to open it but then he did it and drink this from now on. When he started being really hungry he look for some fish in the water and since he did not have fire and could not cook it he was forced to eat raw food. Once he made the fire he started eating crab. During the movie and when the time passes we can see how much weight he lost due to the food he ate. With thirst, the hypothalamus monitors intracellular shrinkage and release water when the person is low on fluid Also the kidneys create the conscious psychological state of feeling thirsty . The author in the book discusses failures to self-regulate physiological needs and in the movie the main character cannot let that to happen otherwise he will die. He has to do, eat, drink whatever he can to survive so he does not underestimate the powerful motivational force of biological urges.
Another need that we can observe in the movie is psychological needs such as autonomy, relatedness, and competence. Autonomy is the desire choice and decision making flexibility. Our character has to make choices all the time, he has no one else to help him. He has to decide when and how he suppose to get out of that place, how to survive, how to make make that boat that it will go through that huge wave.
The relatedness need we can see when he created a face from a volleyball ball to feel like there is someone with him that he can talk to and do not feel so lonely. We all need that relatedness need and when he found himself in a situation where there are no people, no animals around he had an idea to create somebody who was so special to him, he treated it like the best friend. I think that when he lost that ball in the water was the most sensitive moment in the movie. You can see how much he loves his friend and how much he suffered when he lost him.
Social needs such as achievement power, and affiliation and intimacy. Chuck has that desire to do well, the best as he could relative to a standard of excellence. He wanted to get out of that island and start his life over with his love at home.The biggest achievement of him was that he mad that boat that went through that huge wave an thanks that he get out of that place.
The desire and faith to see his love again keep him believing that he can do it, he can survive and make it home. That such as strong need of intimacy keep him alive. He attended to commit suicide but again Love to Kelly and wanting to be with her did not let him to do it.
Terms:

physological needs, hunger,thirst, sex, psychological needs, autonomy, relatedness, social needs, power, achievements, hypothalamus.

The movie Cast Away shows a lot of different needs that motivated Chuck’s behaviors. Specifically, when he was stranded on the island he had to find new ways to satisfy his needs. First of all, his physiological needs needed to be met in order for him to survive. Needs are essential for human survival, so he had to find food and drink so that his body could continue functioning. One thing I found interesting is that it was not until the coconut fell from the tree that he remembered to drink. This is an example of his psychological drive. Psychological drive is the conscious manifestation of an underlying biological need. His attention was focused on things other than his hunger and thirst, until he saw the coconut fall which brought his physiological need into conscious awareness. When he became aware of his physiological need of thirst he began to hit the coconut repeatedly in order to break it open and drink the liquid. His first attempt failed because the coconut burst open, so he had to find a new way to open the next one. As he thinks more and more about how thirsty he is, his motivation or drive to get a coconut open increases. This is an example of how a physiological need motivates us and directs our behavior so that we can obtain what is necessary to satisfy that need. What was going on internally before he satisfied his need for thirst was that his brain was monitoring the amount of water levels in his body. Because they were low, his hypothalamus released hormones into his blood stream to tell his kidney to conserve water. His hypothalamus also led to the conscious psychological state of being thirsty. This underlying biological process placed Chuck’s attention on being thirsty and directed his behavior to obtain liquid from the coconut. Obviously hunger is another physiological need that all humans have. In order to meet this need Chuck had to find ways to catch fish for food. Luckily, he had the netting from a dress to use as a net to catch fish. He also had the ice skates which he used to sharpen tools. Over time, and with practice, he learned different ways to obtain food and drink so that he could satisfy his physiological needs.
Chuck’s psychological needs definitely took a plunge while he was on that island. For example, his competence was very low when he was trying to start a fire. He tried so hard that he even made his hands bleed. He was not having “effective interactions with his environment” which meant that he was experiencing low competence. The level of difficulty was too much for him in the beginning. He had trouble catching food and starting the fire but, need for competence and his persistence led him to successfully start the fire. As humans, we have the need for competence. This means that we need to be effective in our interactions with the environment we are in. For Chuck, he struggled for a while with starting the fire, but his motivation to succeed at the task led him to satisfy his need for competence when he lit the fire. You could see on his face and by his excitement how important getting that fire started was to him. Not only would it provide light, warmth, and heat to cook with, but lighting the fire also made Chuck feel successful, and thus competent. When we feel competent we feel happy, and you could definitely tell he was happy after he started the fire!
One of the most interesting things from the movie was that he created a friend. We all have the need for relatedness; that is, we have the need “to form and maintain warm, close, affectionate relationships with others”. Our desire to be close with others is an internal need. For Chuck, making the volleyball into a “friend” allowed him to have a connection with someone, or something. It allowed him to feel as if he had someone to share things with and to talk to. He cracks a joke to “Wilson” when he is trying to get the fire started. Chuck even laughs about it “with” Wilson. The interesting thing about Chuck and his friend is that all Chuck needed was someone or something to satisfy his need for relatedness. As chapter 6 pointed out, having one’s relatedness satisfied “promotes vitality and well-being”. By creating Wilson, Chuck was really benefiting his psychological well-being. The important factor for relatedness is the perception that the other person cares about your welfare and that they like you for your “true self”. Because Wilson was part of Chuck’s imagination, Wilson could be anything that Chuck needed him to be. In this case, Chuck needed a friend. Wilson also satisfied Chuck’s social needs, which are acquired through “experience, development, and socialization.”
When Chuck was trying to light the fire, his effort and persistence were high. Chapter 9 pointed out that people will, exert more effort and persist longer when they have high self efficacy. Self efficacy is a person’s belief that he or she “can do it”. High self efficacy leads people to believe in themselves and their ability to cope with situational demands. Chuck demonstrated high self efficacy when he realized his hands were bleeding, he got very frustrated, but he wrapped them up and continued to persist at the task of lighting the fire. He improvised ways to use his personal abilities to generate effective performance, and this is exactly what self efficacy is. As chapter 9 pointed out, “self efficacy becomes important when circumstances rise to test our abilities”. Chuck being stranded on that island is a perfect example of a situation that became very challenging, but his self efficacy allowed him to persist and succeed. Because Chuck was resilient in the face of failure, his effort and persistence continued and it allowed him to be successful. Another personal control belief that was relevant to the fire scene was that after he finally got the fire started, he felt empowered. Chuck used his knowledge and skills to effectively start the fire, even in the face of failure. That is, he exerted control over “intrusive negative thoughts” that were probably occurring due to failure. Empowerment relies on “having the knowledge, skills, and beliefs that allow people to exert control over their lives.” When Chuck first woke up on that island, his sense of personal control was very low, but as he persisted in the face of challenges, his sense of control increased, as did his self efficacy.

Terms: Physiological needs, motivation, psychological drive, thirst, hypothalamus, competence, relatedness, psychological well-being, vitality, internal need, psychological needs, social needs, efficacy, resilient, effort, persistence, personal control beliefs, empowerment,

Cast Away is a movie that shows the content that we are learning in Motivation and Emotion very well. Throughout the whole movie one can see examples of the three basic needs that are explained in chapter four. These three needs include physiological needs, psychological needs and social needs.

Chapter four talks about physiological needs. A physiological need occurs when there is a biological condition not being met. When Chuck became stranded on the island, the viewer could see two apparent physiological needs. These needs included thirst and hunger. Due to Chuck not having things to drink or eat, his body's homeostatic level, which makes sure all systems in the body are fulfilled and equal, was off which created the need for water and food. As we learned from chapter 3, Chuck's hypothalamus and kidneys were playing a large role in Chuck's bodily need for water. Chuck was experiencing what chapter four explains to be osmometric thirst. Osmometric thirst which occurs when the body suffers dehydration. We see in the movie that when Chuck's need for water got high enough he did two things he would not have otherwise done if his need for thirst wasn't as high. The first is that he drank from a puddle and the second is when he used energy to crack open a coconut. If his body's homeostatic level was only slightly off, he would have thought drinking out of a puddle was gross. Also if his level was only slightly off, he would not have spent so much energy trying to get the coconut open to only get a few drops of liquid out of it.

Chuck's hunger was also a physiological need. According to chapter 4 Chuck went through short term appetite and long term energy balance. Short term hunger regulates initiation of meals, the size of meals and the termination of meals. This occurs when blood glucose drops. Long term energy balance is when fat cells drop below its homeostatic balance. Chuck went through long term energy balance when at first he was learning how to use his resources, therefor still struggling to find enough food. Chuck's need for food motivated him to learn how to catch fish with only a stick.

The book also talks about psychological needs being one of the three basic needs. These needs include autonomy, competence and relatedness. Autonomy is the control that one feels over his/her life and actions. When Chuck gets stranded on the island, his autonomy significantly decreased. This was due to him not having any control over the environment he was in. For example, he was forced to eat a lot of fish due to the environment not giving him any other choices, he didn't have any other choice of where to live, as the environment doesn't provide any other good options, he was forced to adapt to everything such as the weather that the environment threw at him. At one point in the movie he contemplates committing suicide and later explains that he couldn't even kill himself the way he wanted to. Another big example is the way he wanted to try and seek help. Chuck felt as if he only had one option and that option was to brave the ocean on a man made floating devise (made up of logs and such).

Chuck shows a lot of competence, which is another psychological need. Competence is the need to be effective with interactions with the environment. Environmental conditions such as optimal challenge, clear and helpful structure, high failure tolerance and positive feedback. Chuck's whole time on the island had a lot of challenges. He had to learn how to catch fish with just a stick, build his own shelter, find ways to show life on the island for search units and ultimately find a way off the island. Along with challenge, Chuck showed a very high tolerance for failure. We see that even at first when he struggled with catching fish, he kept at it. When writing 'HELP' in the sand didn't work, he didn't give up. Flow is the term that the book uses to explain when a person uses his/her skill to overcome a challenge. It explains that flow is reached when challenge and skill are perfectly matched. I saw a lot of flow in this movie from Chuck. For example, when he worked so hard at rubbing the sticks together to create a fire. This was a challenge and he matched his skills perfectly to create a successful fire. This showed great competence.

The third psychological need is relatedness. Relatedness is the need to establish close emotional bonds and attachments. Stranded on the island, Chuck had no relatedness. He was lacking the satisfaction of having relationships and bonds. This is when Wilson (the volleyball he turned into a smiley face) comes up in the movie. In any other situation, Chuck would probably not have created a bond with a volleyball but instead another human being. Due to Chuck's need for relatedness being so high, he created such a bond with Wilson. I could also clearly see in the movie that he missed his close relationship to his girlfriend. I observed this every time he was laying down at night and would flash his light onto the picture of her.

The third basic need is social needs. Social needs include achievement, affiliation and intimacy. Out of the three basic needs, I saw social needs the least in this movie. However, Chuck did have a high need for achievement when it came to getting off the island. Through all of his attempts, I would have thought that he was about ready to give up and accept the fact that he would never get off the island. There is a scene in the movie where he is mapped out where exactly he was and discovered that the search area for him was twice the size of Texas. I thought for sure he would give up and fall into learned helplessness. However, he had persistence. The book talks about how those who have persistence, are more likely to have high achievement rates. Chuck's persistence paid off when he finally got off the island.

Chapter 1 discusses internal and external motivation. To me, all along it was Chuck's internal motivation that kept him going. I believe that this internal motivation was his love for his girlfriend. I don't believe it could be external motivation that kept him going because stranded on the island there was no sources that were motivating him to get off. One could say that an external motivator would be to escape the environment of the island. However, he knew that the environment that he had to go through (the ocean) would be even worse!

The key points from the chapter were very clearly shown in Cast Away. This movie does a great job at showing examples of the terms put into daily situations.

The movie “Cast Away” touched on a lot of concepts and terms that we have been learning in this class. One of the main concepts that was very apparent in this movie was physiological needs. First it is important to understand what a need is exactly. As defined in the book, as well as class, a need is a condition that is within a person and is vital for “life, growth and wellbeing” (Reeve, 2009 & MacLin, 2011).

Take thirst for an example. This is a conscious signal we get when our body is below the needed volume of water. Therefore, our bodies are motivated to take any means necessary to refill the water. The any means necessary part depends on the given situation. If I was in class and really thirsty, but I knew if I got up to get a drink I would be scolded by my professor, I probably would just wait until the class is over. However, Chuck was highly motivated because his body was signaling that he needed to replenish his water. He displays drive when he is trying to open up the coconut for the first time. He begins by throwing it countless times at a rock wall. Then he tried to puncture the outside by beating it against a rock. He is finally able to cut it open when one of the rocks breaks and then has a sharp edge. The reason this is an example of drive is because drive is defined as a function of behavior that leads to servicing biological imbalances (Reeve, 2009). A few other examples from the movie that display thirst are when he finds a leaf on the ground that has water pooled up on it, he carefully brings his mouth to the leaf so he can drink the water. Another example is when he is on his raft towards the end of the movie and he uses some coconuts as jugs and collects rain water to drink.

Another physiological need that was displayed in the movie was hunger. Hunger is more difficult to define. As discussed in class, hunger is a complex regulatory system that consists of short-term appetite and long-term energy balance regulation. Short-term appetite is usually what causes someone to eat. Long-term refers to balancing food intake with the amount of energy exerted. One example is the movie is when Chuck uses a makeshift net out of a dress that was in one of the FedEx boxes. He uses this net to catch small fish. As he catches them, he then puts one directly in his mouth and eats it. For most people that would not be appealing to eat. However, given his situation he is highly motivated to eat it. I would assume that during the course of his time on the island his body would have initially released ghrelin into his bloodstream which would have increased his motivation to consume food. Another example when he seems to be very hungry is when he spears a crab with a stick. As he tears off the leg blood and other substances fall out. You could see the disappointment in his eyes. However, once he finally gets a fire started he is able to cook the crab over the fire therefore satiating his hunger.

Another concept that I can relate to the movie comes from the chapter on “The Motivated and Emotional Brain”. I think that Chuck creates a very close bond to his friend “Wilson”. Because the nature of his event and the amount of stress it causes, Chuck is probably getting a lot of the hormone oxytocin. Oxytocin is a bonding hormone that helps people turn to their close friends in stressful situations. Because he is all alone on the island and he creates a bond with Wilson (the volleyball) he begins to see it as a real person. For example, he would engage in arguments with Wilson and respond as if Wilson had said something. Another example is towards the end of the movie when Wilson falls off of the makeshift raft. Chuck begins to swim out to try and save him and risks his life in doing so. He eventually has to let Wilson go because he is not able to swim any longer.

TERMS: Physiological Need, Need, Thirst, Motivation, Drive, Hunger, Short-Term Appetite, Long-Term Energy Balance, Ghrelin, Hormone, Oxytocin, Deprived.

The movie Cast Away is a great movie to watch when looking at physiological needs as well as the functioning of brain structures and their mechanisms that tie them to emotion. Much of the movie deals around the main character Chuck Noland, a FedEx employee whom is left stranded on an island within the South Pacific after his plane crashes during a very heavy storm. Being stuck on an un-inhabited island all by himself, Chuck is forced to cope with his physiological needs as well as his emotions that arise while living on the island.

It does not come at any surprise then, that while stuck on this island, Chuck encounters the physiological needs of hunger and thirst. After a couple of days on the island, it is apparent that Chuck is becoming thirsty, and, out of his body’s desire to maintain a level of homeostasis, Chuck’s physiological need to quench his osmometric thirst activates a motivational drive within him to seek out replenishment within his environment. Eventually, Chuck comes across coconuts which he can not only use to drink the coconut milk within them out, but he can also use them to catch rainwater which he can later drink. From here, we are able to see that Chuck has become resourceful and his behavior to satiate his thirst can be seen in the multiple inputs/outputs model where drive is seen as an intervening variable between a thirst condition and the behavioral choices Chuck’s drive can lead him to choosing to fulfill his thirst satiation (can either drink coconut milk, drink rainwater from coconuts, etc.). But what brain mechanism caused Chuck to experience thirst? It is the hypothalamus that is responsible for causing people to experience the state of thirst. Prior to the body reaching homeostasis (an equilibrium through-out the body, prior to this can be seen when there were low-water levels through-out the body), the brain released a hormone throughout the blood plasma that acts as a message to the kidneys telling them to conserve water and to thus, release more concentrated urine (urine with more components of urea than water) so that water is not wasted through the passing of urine. Through-out much of the movie Chuck is in a constant struggle to obtain water in order to satisfy his need for thirst, whether he is satiating his need for thirst through ground-puddles, collected rain-water or coconut milk.

Hunger is also another physiological need that Chuck must overcome through-out much of the movie. There are many scenes through-out the movie where, aside from Chuck’s favorite food/beverage in the movie being coconut milk, he can be seen catching fish and crab in order to feed and survive while on the island. From the glucostatic hypothesis we can see that Chuck’s blood-sugar levels must be getting critically low, resulting in the feeling of hunger and the desire to eat. When the liver notices that blood glucose levels are low it sends an excitatory message to the hypothalamus within the brain, stimulating the motivational drive for one to eat in order to satisfy their physiological need for hunger. Once Chuck has had his physiological need for hunger satisfied , Chuck’s ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH) works as a negative feedback system in order to tell Chuck that his hunger has been satiated and that he can stop eating (although with the limited amount of food on the island I am sure it is rare for Chuck to ever reach this state). Aside from the glucostatic hypothesis of hunger, there are also other intra-organismic mechanisms that help play into the physiological need of hunger. For example, when Chuck is starting to feel hungry, his body may be producing a high amount of ghrelin in order to stimulate the hypothalamus to produce a psychological drive to eat. Upon feeling full, the body may release a hormone known as leptin to the VMH in order to produce the feeling of satiety.

Through-out much of the movie, many of Chuck’s brain structures may be creating enhanced states of arousal and emotion in response to Chuck’s environment. For example, when the plane is going down into the ocean and filling up with water, Chuck’s amygdala is responding to a threatening event and is most likely being stimulated to experience the feelings of fear and anxiety in order to help aid in self-preservation (keeping Chuck alive). As we progress through-out the movie, we learn that Chuck had made plans to hang himself from the summit of the island. Chuck could have been suffering from depression when he was making this sort of decision and it is possible that he may have been experiencing decreased functioning within his Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC). This lower amount of functioning within the ACC could have been because Chuck was not given a lot of options and choices while on this island (not having the option of many choices to a particular situation has shown to be correlated with low levels of blood flow in and out of the ACC area).

Aside from these brain structures playing a large part in Chuck’s motivations and emotions while on the island, neurotransmitters probably also played a large role as well. Two neurotransmitters which probably played the largest part were both serotonin and endorphins. Serotonin, which is known to influence moods and emotions probably played a large part in Chuck’s overall mood on the island, as well as his outlook of future events while on the island. Endorphins can be seen playing a number of large roles in the movie, such as inhibiting pain (such as when Chuck had his thigh bashed against the corals when trying to leave the island for the first time, as well as being seen when he pulled his own tooth out) anxiety and fear. These endorphins may have played a key role in Chuck being able to row himself out over the waves when successfully leaving the island four years later, as they inhibited his fear of leaving the island. The final neurotransmitter that Chuck probably experienced a lot of while on the island, and what possibly kept his hopes up, was the neurotransmitter dopamine (the neurotransmitter responsible for providing feelings of pleasure). Chuck probably received this neurotransmitter whenever he received a good meal or accomplished something he had set out to do (such as leave the island or build a raft).

Terms
Physiological needs
Homeostasis
Osomometric thirst
Multiple Inputs/Outputs
Hypothalamus
Glucostatic hypothesis
Ghrelin
Leptin
Ventromedial hypothalamus
Intra-organismic mechanisms
Amygdala
Anterior Cingulate Cortex
Neurotransmitters
Endorphins
Serotonin

An apparent motivational theme throughout the movie of Cast Away was that of need. The concept of need is defined as any condition within a person that is necessary for life, growth, and well being. When our needs are met, our well-being is satisfied. If needs are being neglected for some reason, our well being is damaged. Our motivational states work to help us accomplish fulfilling our need states.

There are three different types of needs, the first being physiological needs. A physiological need is a biological need that signals to the brain that it needs fulfilled. Our brain then works to motivate us to satiate it. This creates a drive. When the character first becomes stranded on the island, he must address his need of thirst. His body was trying to fulfill his need of homeostasis, which is the need to stay balanced. His drive was strong enough to make him drink water off a leaf. It was also strong enough to keep him working at breaking open a coconut for milk. He did not keep looking for water forever though, once he was no longer thirsty he paid attention to another need. This is because the body had reached homeostasis. Homeostasis is the state of balance within the body.

The next need he needed to address was that of hunger. Hunger is a more complex need than thirst. Short term appetite is a type of hunger that cues us when to eat, how much to eat, and when to stop eating. When blood glucose levels drop, we feel hungry and want to eat. After Chuck satieted his need for thirst, he began to look for food. At first he was satisfied with eating coconut. This satisfied his short term appetite and restored his blood sugar levels back to their original leve. But soon the coconut ceases to satisfy Chuck and he begins to look for other sources of food. Why would he begin to look for different food when he already had a viable food source? This could be explained by the set point theory. The set point theory ties into the way we maintain our long term energy balance. Set point theory suggests that hunger and satiety depends on the size of ones fat cells. Because the coconut was not calorically high enough to keep up with the rate of his metabolism, he still felt hungry and began to look for other sources of calories. Unfortunately, there were few sources of calories on this island for him and his only other choices were crab and fish. Some people can become subject to environmental influences when it comes to food. These social situations can interfere with our physiological guides. These situations would not apply to Chuck though. Chuck was eating solely for the need of survival.

One of the few things that got Chuck through his time on the island was the thought of his girlfriend Kelly. He kept her picture with him to keep him motivated throughout the 1500 days he was forced to spend secluded on the island. The picture and memory of Kelly could have triggered Chuck’s dopamine. The release of dopamine creates good feelings. The thought of Kelly created an incentive. An incentive is a stimuli that comes before the delivery of a reward. In this case, the thought of Kelly served as an incentive to getting off the island. The anticipation of this reward caused a dopamine release and resulted in pleasure. If this release of dopamine had not occurred, Chuck would have forgotten why he wanted off the island and given up. This left Chuck in a state of wanting. The state of wanting occurs before the receipt of reward.

In contrast, a dopamine release that once triggered good feelings in Chuck was his job. Before he became stranded, Chuck enjoyed life as a business man. It made him feel good to see his business do well. His beeper seemed to be a large source of pleasure for him. This is an example of dopamine release and reward. When Chuck’s hard work over seas paid off, this triggered a release of dopamine. This dopamine acted as a reward. This reward then reinforced the behavior that caused it. Chuck felt compelled to continue travelling due to this dopamine release. This left Chuck in a state of liking. The state of liking occurs after the receipt of the reward.

TERMS: need, drive, thirst, hunger, homeostasis, short term appetite, long term energy balance, set point theory, homeostasis, dopamine, incentives, rewards, state of liking, state of wanting, fat cells, glucose

Cast Away had many parts that we learned about in the book. The parts that I noticed the much was all the needs that were not met. There were physiological needs, psychological needs, and social needs. The main character Chuck had all of these needs after he was stranded on an Island for four years. The main needs you see him trying to satisfy are the physiological needs. These are hunger and thirst. You can tell how serious his thirst is when you see him try his hardest to get coconuts open to drink the milk inside. You see it again later when he is desperate enough to drink from a dirty puddle of rain water in the cave. When he has a serious urge to satisfy his hunger you see him make a spear and a net to catch fish. When he catches a baby fish he is so desperate that he puts the fish, which is still alive, in his mouth and eats it. When that does not satisfy him he stabs a crab and attempts to eat the crab meat out of its claw, which is just mush. That is when he gets the idea of creating a fire.

One of the main psychological needs Chuck was unable to satisfy that was very clear was autonomy. After he is rescued he even told a therapist that he could not even kill himself in the way he wanted. That is made clear when he goes up to the top of the mountain and you see the dummy he made to test what would happen if he hung himself. He did not get any choice of anything. He did not have much choice over what to eat. He got to eat whatever he found. He only could drink when he had coconuts and he could open them, or the occasional rain water he found in puddles or leaves. Another important psychological need was relatedness that he tried to satisfy. This resulted in talking to a volley ball. Chuck eventually talks to a volleyball that was in one of the FedEx boxes he opened. He called it Wilson and he has conversations with it. After Chuck throws the ball with his bloody hand he goes searching for it to find that the bloody handprint kind of looks like a face. He clears of a nose and eyes to make it perfect. Soon after this seen you see him talking to Wilson for the very first time. It was not much, but eventually he will have complete conversations with him. When he sees Wilson floating off he becomes very sad because he knows he will never see him again and Wilson is his only friend, his only form of relatedness.

The main social need he tried to satisfy was intimacy. Several times throughout the movie you just watch him staring at the picture of Kelley. When he is on the plane and it is going on he gets out of his seat to grab the pocket watch that has her picture in it. You see him laying in his make shift tent flipping on and off the flashlight just to look at the picture of Kelley. He falls asleep every night with the picture staring at him. He tells you that coming home to Kelley was the only reason he knew he was supposed to live and survive. When he returns home to find that Kelley had moved on with her life his need still does not get satisfied.

Terms: Psychological needs, physiological needs, social needs, thirst, hunger, relatedness, autonomy, intimacy.

Cast away had to deal with a lot of the turmoil of Chuck when he stranded on an island in the Pacific Ocean with intent to try to get off and get back to his fiancée. While watching the movie what I thought about was needs that he required to survive and not go crazy on that island all by himself, and such needs we have discussed in class like physiological, psychological, and social needs.
I think when it comes the physiological needs (thirst, hunger, and sex) thirst he first runs into coconuts and he has trouble, but he’s so dehydrated that he is persistent at breaking the coconut even though he gets barely any water out of them. Hunger at first he is trying to spear the fish that come near shore, but with no success and then he captures the crab, but when he tries to eat it the meat on the crab isn’t good neither. Sex, I wouldn’t really say that he had so much as a need for that because the movie never really portrays him as a sexual character.
Then when, his psychological needs came into play (autonomy, competence, and relatedness) he had to adapt his mind to accommodate to his new environment. For autonomy I feel like he didn’t feel like that for a long or even at all because his whole world crashed around him and was on this new island starting out new having probably no idea how to start a new life on a deserted island, basically no control over nothing. Competence I feel like was a huge influence here because when you go from civilized life when everything is nearly provided for you and then you are on an island and you basically have to work with what you have around you. For instance, hunting for fish when they show him when he first shows up on the island he is a terrible hunter, but when they show him four years challenge of trying to get a fish is a piece of cake. Relatedness was heavy through the movie to with his relationship with Wilson, how they had conversations even though Wilson could never talk back, Chuck seemed to make it up in his head. Even though Wilson was a volleyball putting a face on it, he had made up Wilson as kind of imaginary friend and was probably a big influence at what kept him going to survive on the island.
Then, probably the scarcest thing that probably affected Chuck was his social needs (achievement, affiliation/intimacy, and power). His sense of achievement probably came for when he is mastering his surviving his survival skills on the island for instance being able to get a fire started easier, hunting for food, taking down trees to use as resources, and to adapt to a more primitive lifestyle, with less needs than we are used to. His social need of intimacy was very high because he had the love of his life stripped away from him and all he had on the island was the picture in the watch of her. Even when he came back to society he still couldn’t have her because she had married a man while he was gone and now that he’s back he has lost her again, so the intimacy thing has gone down the tubes for him. His sense of power was there, but it wasn’t either because he had this whole island to himself and could do whatever he wanted, but he didn’t know what to do with it, it was new to him and he didn’t know how to control it or what to do with it, until he left four years later.
Overall his needs were at basic survival and for humans nowadays we are heavily into social needs and if most of us didn’t have that confront of a grocery store down the street it would probably be extremely hard to adjust very well.
Terms: physiological needs thirst, hunger, psychological needs, autonomy, competence, relatedness, social needs, achievement, intimacy, and power.

Chapter one talks about needs which are conditions within the individual that is necessary for the maintenance of life and for the nurturance of growth and well-being. A couple biological needs that Chuck shows throughout the movie are hunger and thirst. Being stranded on the island Chuck had not drank any water or ate any food for a long time in the beginning. He kept hearing something like a knocking noise and once he figured out it were coconuts falling from a tree he did everything he could to open up the coconut so he could drink. He repeatedly threw the coconut at hard surfaces, which did not work. He then tried hitting it against a pointy edge of a rock. He finally found an ice skate which he used to successfully break open the coconut. This shows that his need for water was so great that he tried anything and everything just to drink. When it would rain he would also collect the water off of the leaves. For food he tried to spear fish and he was unsuccessful. He then made a net out of material from a dress that was in a Fedex box. After four years he became better at spearing fish so he was able to eat fish. He also ate the coconut. He would even eat fish raw. Chuck did just about anything to be able to drink and eat, which shows how essential these needs are. His hypothalamus played a very big role with his hunger and thirst because it regulates a range of important biological functions, including eating, drinking, and mating. Chapter one also talks about cognitions which are mental events, such as thoughts, beliefs, expectations, and the self-concept. When Chuck made the raft out of logs and part of the outhouse he told himself and Wilson that they had a better chance of being found if they set out to sea. He had expectations of himself to be able to do this. In chapter two drive is defined as motivating whatever behavior was instrumental to servicing the body’s needs. When Chuck was trying to make fire he cut his hand, but because he had the drive to create fire he just covered his cut up and kept pushing through the pain. He knew he needed to be able to make fire to survive. Before chuck was able to create the fire he had a strong want for it. After he created the fire he liked the reward. I would say that he more than liked the fire he was ecstatic. He also had the drive to risk dying out at sea rather than staying on the island and possibly never being found. Chuck always kept the picture of his girlfriend Kelly and looked at it every day. By looking at her picture I believe that some dopamine was released. When dopamine is released good feelings are generated. Her picture is what kept him alive. Chapter three says that the limbic system receives incoming sensory stimulation that activate rather automatic emotional reactions. When Chuck first speared the crab and pulled of its leg he expected to be able to eat it, but once he saw that it was gooey you could tell just by his facial expression that he was immediately upset.

Words: Needs, Cognitions, Drive, Dopamine, wanting, liking, limbic system, hypothalamus

Cast Away is a great movie which exemplifies many of the concepts we have focuses on in class and our textbook. All three basic needs, psychological needs, social needs, and physiological needs, were shown. While most of the needs are shown after Chuck is stranded on the island, there are several needs that exist before the plane crash. The movie opens with showing Chuck at work. He is leading a team of FedEx employees, telling them how to do their job and what is expected. The very first scenes show his social need for power. He obviously has a high need for power since he enjoys being in that leadership role. He also has a beeper, which he answers no matter where he is. He likes controlling other people, to the point that he will leave important social functions, such as the family dinner, to satisfy this need. For him the need for power does not seem to overlap into his social/intimate life so much. His need for power wasn’t only exemplified pre-crash, however. Related to this need is his psychological need for autonomy.

After the crash, Chuck displayed a psychological need for autonomy. He is on an island that he is unfamiliar with and appears to have no control over anything that happens to him. At this point in his life, he has an external perceived locus of control. It leads him to feel very depressed and he just kind of floats along with life instead of trying to do anything to improve it. Throughout the remaining time on the island, he develops a higher sense of autonomy. It is obvious that his need for autonomy is high, but there is a discrepancy between his current level of control and his ideal level of control. In order to overcome this discrepancy, he is motivated to build his own home, catch his own food, build a fire, and even control when and if he will die. Not only are these behaviors motivated by the need for autonomy, but they fit several other needs that will be discussed shortly. In the end of the film, he explains to his friend how he didn’t have control over much and that he couldn’t even kill himself right. He then shifts to how he gained autonomy by building the raft and deciding when and how to leave the island. Clearly, his perceived locus of control shifts throughout the almost 5 years he is on the island.

Not only does he have a high need for autonomy, but he has a high need for competence. The need for him to be able to do things and do them well drives many of his behaviors throughout his time on the island. Some of the biggest examples were his need for competence when trying to make fire. Chuck is aware that this is a difficult task. He feels like he has the skills necessary and seeks out an optimal challenge of making fire out of nothing. Since this is a difficult task and he feels he has the skills, he will keep attempting the challenge until he accomplishes his goal. Once he completes it and is able to make a fire, he feels a sense of flow. He first experienced flow for a brief bit when he saw smoke the first time and thought a fire had started. This feeling drove him to try again, even though he was tired and he ended up cutting his hand. H knew he could do it and wanted to have that wonderful feeling of competence. It was important that he got that positive feedback of smoke because it allowed him to assess his level of progress and support his competence. He also exhibited these concepts when he was making rope to build his raft. He had to spend a long time making the rope and gathering the bark to make it, but he knew he had the skills and his need for competence helped drive him to make enough rope to build his raft. His need for competence can be exemplified by his drive to catch fish, crack open coconuts, and many more behaviors whilst on the island.

A big part of his time on the island, and also a big part of his behaviors, was his need for relatedness. Being alone on the island, he has no one to talk to, to connect with, to do things for, or bond with. While Chuck was opening the FedEx boxes, he found one with a volleyball in it. He thought nothing of it, until one day his hand was bleeding and he threw the ball. This left a bloody handprint on the ball and he recognized it as a face. His high need for relatedness drove him to draw a face in the handprint and start talking to “Wilson”. Wilson becomes his best friend. He has conversations with him, he takes him with him wherever he goes, and when he gets mad and throws him, he goes outside to find him, screaming his name. He also leaves his raft to try to swim after Wilson when he floats away. He may seem crazy, but his need for relatedness is strong. It is a psychological need that everyone has. He has a view that Wilson cares for him and cares about his well-being. As the book discusses, “people function better, are more resilient to stress, and report fewer psychological difficulties when their interpersonal relationships support their need for relatedness.” (p. 162) Wilson was definitely integral in Chuck’s mental well-being. Having “Wilson” there to talk to definitely helped him be resilient to stress. If something was not going right, he would talk to Wilson. Wilson helped him plan things out and think through concepts. Without that support for his need for relatedness, there is a good chance that Chuck would not have survived. When he finally loses Wilson, he experiences such sadness. He cries and gives up trying to survive. He lets his oars go and goes to sleep. His loss mirrors what someone would probably go through if they lost someone very close to them.

While his psychological needs are some of the more complex needs shown, there are of course the basic physiological needs. One very important physiological need is the need for thirst. This need created a psychological drive to do many things throughout his time on the island. A person’s body can only last so long without water. When he first arrived on the island, his body experienced two types of thirst, osmometric and volumetric. His cells were deprived of fluids from going without for a while. This is an example of osmometric thirst. He experienced volumetric thirst when his fluids outside his cells needed replenished. This occurred because he had to swim and try to stay afloat. He sweated, bled, probably threw up to the point that his body needed to replenish those fluids. His body was not in a state of homeostasis, so he had a sense of thirst activation. In order to satiate his thirst, he did many things. He worked very hard to open the coconuts to drink the little bit of milk they had in them. He was so thirsty that he was drinking bits of water off of leaves on the ground, probably left over from the rain. He also drank from the dirty puddle in the cave. They did not show it, but he probably tried to drink water from the ocean. This would have made his thirst worse because of the salt in the water. The salt would deplete fluids from his cells even more, so in a sense he would have been punished not to drink the ocean water again. Eventually he was at a point where he began to collect water in empty coconut shells. Doing this allowed him to avoid leaving a homeostatic state, to the point of water deprivation.

His need for hunger was strong. He was doing so much each day that his body was being depleted of energy, thus activating his need for food. The book discusses the glucostatic hypothesis that says just that. His body was responding to the rise and fall in plasma glucose. Since he was typically low in glucose, his body stimulated his brain to increase hunger. This created a drive to obtain food, even when the task may have been too difficult. He tried to crack open the coconuts even though they were very tough. He also made a spear to try to catch fish and crabs. His short-term appetite was a strong motivator to catch food. His long-term energy balance was important in that for quite a while he was deprived of food. His metabolism would have dropped to sustain his life. Without satiation, his body began to use its stored fat as energy to satisfy his need. Because of this, he lost quite a bit of weight. This long-term energy depletion drove him to find better ways to catch his food. He made spears, he opened the boxes and used the ice skates to open coconuts, and he used the dress for a net. It also assisted in his drive to create fire. Once he was able to make a fire, he was able to cook food.

Even though he was not in the presence of others, his social needs were activated. I already discussed how his need for power was exemplified in the beginning. He did show quasi-needs throughout his time on the island. Some of the most notable were his need for foot protection and his need for a dentist. His need for foot protection was a short-lived need that motivated him to create “shoes”. His feet were bleeding and in order to stop it, he put his other needs aside and took care of it. Once it was taken care of, it was not a problem and did not require his attention. He also had a quasi-need for a dentist. His tooth had been bothering him since before he was stranded. It got to the point that it distracted him from his main needs enough that he put it in focus. He was motivated to use the skates and a rock to bust his tooth out. Once he accomplished this goal, this need was no longer a need. His focus was back on his main needs.

More importantly than his quasi-needs was his social need for achievement. The book describes a need for achievement as “the desire to do well relative to a standard of excellence.” (p. 175) This may be a competition with a task, competition with one’s self, or competition with another. Chuck shows a high need for achievement. He chose mostly difficult tasks instead of easy ones and was energized by the competition. Typically, the competition was against a task or his self; however, he did seem to use Wilson as a motivator for achievement, especially when trying to start a fire. He has many incentives that motivate his need for achievement. Incentives for starting the fire are that he will be warm, get cooked food, and get light. These drive him to try because he knows the consequence of achieving his goal will be worth it. Many times, he has a high expectation for success. He adapts a mastery orientation which leads him to choose more difficult tasks and a lot of the time, he increases his effort in the face of a difficult task. He did not give up many things when they became too difficult. According to Atkinson, he chose a mastery goal most of the time. Since he did not have anyone to show off to, besides Wilson, he mostly did things to develop competence, make progress, improve himself, and overcome difficulties with effort and persistence. He knew that if he wanted to survive, he would have to overcome whatever was thrown at him. In order to do this, his achievement goals were focused on becoming better at whatever it was he was doing. He was very much an incremental theorist and very rarely gave up on a task. Along with the book, the only time he gave up was when the task was very difficult and his skill level was not as high. He saw his tendency to fail was high and thus he was motivated to avoid the task.

One thing he struggled with was his ability to satisfy his need for affiliation and intimacy. This need did help motivate him to leave the island, because he strived to be with Kelly again. His actions with Wilson exemplified his attempt to satisfy this need. He did try to make sure that Wilson “liked” him. He treated him like he was a real person and would go out of his way to make sure that he was comfortable. When he threw Wilson, he had a fear of being rejected, so he went looking for him. He also tried to satisfy his need for intimacy. He would hold Wilson, talk to him, and “listen” to him. It was his one and only close relationship.

The last major theme that ran through this film was Chuck’s process of goal setting and goal striving. There were smaller examples throughout the film to exemplify this; however, the most important was his goal of getting off the island. He experienced a discrepancy when he was on the island. His present state was being on the island and his ideal state was being off the island back with Kelly. This discrepancy motivated and directed him to form a plan and goal to get off the island. Based on the chart on page 226 of our book, Chuck hit on every step of the effective goal-setting program. First he specified the objective to be accomplished; he wanted to be off the island. Second he defined the goal difficulty; he knew it would be pretty difficult. Third he clarified the goal specificity; he decided he needed to get off the island by making a raft and have it ready by a certain month. Fourth he specified the time span when performance will be assessed; he said specifically that he would have to have the raft done by spring because that is when the tide and wind changed. He also specified when he would have to have ropes done by and if he didn’t then he wouldn’t make it in time to leave. All of these steps were vital for goal-setting. As for goal-striving, he checked on goal acceptance; he accepted this goal as his. He discussed goal-attainment strategies; he talked to Wilson and discussed how he would go about getting off the island with a raft. He created implementation intentions; he decided when and where and how exactly he would begin building his raft. He knew how long it would take him to build the ropes, how many ropes he needed, what parts needed what, etc. He also said when he would leave on the raft in order to get away from the island successfully. He figured out what he would need to do if there were interruptions and how many ropes a day were needed. He fully had an implementation intention. Since he had all this figured out, he had a system to create performance feedback. He assessed how many ropes he had done by when and if he was on track. He had a hiccup where he needed more rope, but had figured out that he would use the rope he made to try to hang himself with. With all of these steps completed, his goal-setting program was effective. He left when he needed to and was able to get through the waves. Each step gave him positive feedback and thus a feeling a flow because he had overcome a difficult challenge. It made him want to keep going. If he had not created such a good program, he would not have probably gotten off the island or would have experienced problems that he was not prepared for. He had high self-efficacy which led him to be empowered to get off the island. All of these needs combined motivated and drove him to survive and get off the island back home.

Terms used: needs, psychological needs, social needs, physiological needs, drive, power, autonomy, competence, relatedness, thirst, hunger, deprivation, satiated, homeostasis, perceived locus of control, external perceived locus of control, motivation, discrepancy, flow, psychological drive, osmometric thirst, volumetric thirst, glucostatic hypothesis, short-term appetite, long-term energy balance, quasi-needs, achievement, affiliation, intimacy, mastery orientation, mastery goal, incremental theorist, goal setting, goal striving, implementation intention, goal difficulty, goal specificity, goal acceptance, goal-attainment strategies, performance feedback

Throughout the movie there were a large number of things that could have been pulled out and talked about. I have picked a few to pull out and talk about. The first one that I want to talk about is the scene where Chuck is first gets to the island. When he wakes up and looks around then he gets up and instinctively starts picking up the FedEx boxes. Why does Chuck go right back to his job? Research would tell us that it is probably because it has become his routine and that his body naturally does it now after the many years I’m sure he has done his job. Another thing that could be bearing down on the reason he is picking up these boxes he thinks that he will be rescued in a short period of time. At first this is the case with the boxes but as the movie progresses on things change. Now he starts to run low on his resources and he is forced to open the boxes even though it is against the code for his job. His need for what is in the boxes is motivated by his motivation to fulfill his physiological needs and his psychological drive to reach the physiological needs. He really needs more things to help with shelter, food, and water so that’s why he is opening them.
Another big one was the one box that he didn’t open. This box helped give him motivation to get off the island and be able to deliver that package. The box though was not the only thing pushing at this motivation. His girlfriend, Kelly, also helped him in that way. I know there was the part about the possible suicide but overall it got helped him through those four years on the island. The reason both the package and Kelly helped was it gave Chuck a social and emotional connection to the real world. It provided him the social needs he no longer had for the time being until Wilson can in later to help with those. They also helped to give him a goal to strive for and gave him a sort of sense of hope.
The next topic that was prevalent was the topic of thirst. There was a big issue with water at the beginning of the movie after he crashes. He has not had to deal with conserving water and has little idea where to get it at the beginning. Quickly though, he develops new ways to gather the water and conserve it. His homeostasis level is very high at the beginning and so the need for water at first is very urgent and he uses a lot of energy in order to fulfill that need. Gradually over the course of being on the island his intraorganismic mechanisms adjust to a lower level so because he can’t fulfill it as often and his body is naturally adjusting due to the negative feedback that the environment is giving the body.

Terms used:
Instinct, will, physiological needs, need, motivation, psychological drive, social needs, goal, thirst, intraorganismic mechanisms, homeostasis, negative feedback

From the beginning of the movie “Cast Away” we notice constant changes in Chuck’s motivation. After the Fed Ex plane crashed into the ocean, there was a sudden shift in the environment. Our environment is full of unexpected changes all the time. Chuck quickly came to realize after the first few days of being stuck on this deserted island that his motivational state has shifted into a new direction. His motives were demanding he turn his attention to the problem of survival with limited resources. Chuck experienced many aversive situations trying to stay alive on the island. Some examples include: failing to open coconuts, struggling to obtain clean water, and the inability to spear fish. Chuck experienced many emotional changes, high anxiety symptoms, and threatening stimuli from stressors. Chuck chose the motivational approach pathway by staying strong and planning out ideas on how to overcome these unexpected obstacle changes in the environment. There was little Chuck could do to avoid the situation he was placed in, he had to fulfill his physiological needs.
In order to continue to stay alive, biological needs were created from lack of food and water. We are able to understand the drive theory through the first few nights of being stranded. Deficits within his body begin to set in, the need for water becomes greater and greater with each hour that passes. Chuck becomes goal oriented in the sense that he will not accept failure. He takes objects from the floating Fed Ex boxes and uses them as tools for his benefit. He used the blades from ice skates to help cut coconuts for water, and eventually used the tip as a spear for catching fish. After fulfilling these primary needs, Chuck’s drive is reduced from temporary satisfaction. However, it was a viscous cycle that was put on repeat for over four years. Being deprived of food and drink changed Chuck’s state in equilibrium and failing to maintain homeostasis. By being able to temporarily satisfy two physiological needs, his body was able to shift from an extremely deprived state back toward achieving homeostasis. To further expand on reasons for fulfilling physiological needs, it is important to understand the concept of thirst and intraorganismic mechanism signaling the importance of water consumption within two days. Being able to catch fish and eat crabs proved to be very essential in the movie. Chuck’s blood glucose level was vastly depleting which helps explain his lowered energy level. The consumption of food was partially responsible for his being able to climb up on the rocks to view the territory in the beginning, allow him the strength to create fire with wood, and build his raft from scratch. Sure he may have developed some muscle atrophy, but not to the point where he was unable to move.
The third physiological need Chuck experienced was sex. The pocket watch Kelly had given Chuck in the beginning of the movie as a Christmas present was the key to stimulating his needs. The picture of her inside the watch was significant because it provided a visual appearance of her which strongly encourages sex in the situation. Facial metrics tell us Chuck was attracted to the picture of her face which caused a sexual desire, one he was unable to accomplish. This may also relate to his psychological needs being neglected because of lack of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. In my opinion, the most obvious reason he was in deprived of psychological needs was when he made the volleyball into a person, Wilson, and communicated with it throughout the remainder of the movie.
Understanding people’s motivations for doing things can be extremely complicating. In Chuck’s case, envisioning yourself being stranded on an island and experiencing his drama is hard to imagine and understand the thoughts and processes he underwent. We can use the term “will” as the power behind his motivation. Decisions on whether to act on events describe will. Chuck acted on making a raft as his opportunity for being rescued. Free will is associated with the person’s choice. Chuck was intrinsically motivated for his own well-being.
The end of the movie is full of many cognitions and emotions. Chuck’s cognitions are finding Kelly to reunite with her where they left off. Kelly cognitively thought Chuck was still alive. She had hope in the situation that one day he would return, despite what others told her. Kelly was overstruck with emotion when she heard Chuck was still alive. She was unable to function properly, fainted, and even was unable to confront him in person at the airport. Chuck was emotionally distraught and yet motivated to go visit her at her house. His cognitions were being distorted by the events that had taken place while he was gone, but in the end he was motivated to find her and let her go with her family.
Terms: Motivation, behavior, emotion, motivational approach, drive theory, equilibrium, homeostasis, physiological needs, hunger, thirst, sex, will, intrinsic motivation, cognitions

As Cast Away is a story about a man who gets stranded on a desert island, it goes without saying that there can be much analysis of the psychological needs of said man. Every human has three basic physiological needs: thirst, hunger and sex. The first of these is obvious and often throughout the extent of Cast Away. The textbook defines thirst as the consciously experienced motivational state that readies the body to perform behaviors necessary to replenish a water deficit. In other words, a loss of water (2% actually), causes us to become thirsty which motivates us to find drink. Chuck, in the Cast Away, is on a plane that crashes in the middle of the ocean during a rainstorm and he floats to the island. The irony is that though he’s surrounded by water, he cannot find anything to drink. He cannot drink salt water, as the salt would absorb the liquids in his body. He cannot really drink the rain water as he has nothing to catch it in. Upon arriving on the island, Chuck begins to explore, looking for water (also food and shelter). He can’t find any pools or ponds or anything like that, so he has to get creative. He drinks some dew off the leaves, he cracks open coconuts, and eventually he even drinks from an absolutely disgusting puddle, one that made me almost sick just watching him drink. To add to the difficulty, Chuck is constantly cutting himself on rocks and coral, which causes him to lose even more water. There are a few reasons for this. The first is the dearth of extraorganismic mechanisms, or outside influences that would cause him to not drink from the puddle. There are no women around he could look piggish in front of, there is no one to tell him he looks stupid, there are no cultural boundaries. Without these, Chuck only relies on his intraorganismic mechanisms which are telling him he is low on water and needs to drink. The fact that he has not had any water is an intracellular deficit which causes osmometric thirst which, in turn, causes cellular dehydration. His sweating, bleeding, urinating and such cause extracellular deficits as he is getting rid of fluid not in the cells; this causes volumetric thirst. That, in turn, causes hypovolemia which is a lack of plasma in the blood. The only way to stop it (which is indirectly through drinking as you replenish intracellular fluid first and then it moves by osmosis to the extracellular fluid) is to drink water which causes hypervolemia. Chuck gradually gets worse until he develops a system for living. Also, his body learns to adjust to his current style of living which affects his thirst activation level (it probably takes a little more for it to happen) and his thirst satiety (it probably comes a bit sooner than before).

A similar thing happens with hunger. Chuck arrives on the island very hungry and then uses all the tools at his disposal (though, I will admit, I don’t understand why he didn’t open the boxes sooner, that seems like a no brainer). He lowers his standards for eating and tries to eat raw crab, but it drips everywhere. When he finally starts a fire, and his reaction to that is almost childlike in its gaiety and excitement. He is thrilled to finally have something more concrete to eat. It’s also interesting to see how the lack of extraorganismic mechanics causes him to eat enough to live only. Whereas back in the States he would eat for fun, eat with friends, eat others’ food to refrain from causing offence. This habit seems to remain even when Chuck returns to the state as at his welcome party, he lingers over the food. He just looks at it, probably wondering how people could eat so rich food and take it all for granted.

Aside from these two physiological needs, Chuck also reveals that he has a high intimacy need. As evidence by his creation and loyalty to Wilson, Chuck has a need for intimacy with people. He needs someone to talk to, to listen, to give advice (even though it’s just his conscience). This is also revealed by his devotion to Kelly. Every day he looks at her picture, and then upon returning to the States, he expresses the same devotion. His devotion is so high that he understands she cannot leave the family she has created for herself there. It’s obvious that he puts others’ before himself. His experience with the food and water though prepares him for this. He talks about how hard it was to keep finding drink and food, but he decided he needed to just keep breathing and that’s what he does with Kelly. He understands that he will just keep breathing; things may be difficult but life will go on.

Thirst, thirst activation, thirst satiety, hypovolemia, hypervolemia, extracellular and intracellular deficits, extraorganismic and intraorganismic mechanics, osmometric thirst, volumetric thirst, physiological need.

The character of Chuck Nolan in the movie Cast Away has escaped a plane crash with his life, but not much else. Of all of a human’s needs – Physiological, Psychological, and Social – his first priority is to get his needs for food, water, and shelter met. The very first thing they show him doing is turning his yellow raft into a shelter, and then creating the giant HELP message in the sand. He knows right off though that while being rescued is possible, it is not likely, and he is going to have to help himself! He doesn’t have to search far for the food, since the coconuts basically fall right into his lap. But what is most interesting about this scene is his determination and persistence. While his survival instincts motivated his behavior to crack open the coconuts, his persistence can be attributed to his unwavering sense of self-efficacy. He tried several methods of cracking the coconut, but all attempts failed repeatedly. Many, if not most, would have dropped to their knees and wept at how futile their efforts were, but Chuck refused to give up. He had both efficacy expectations and outcome expectations that he would figure out a way to succeed in order to survive. You could say that he had HOPE, and that that is what gave him the energy and direction for his efforts.

Through solving the problems associated with getting his physiological needs met, Chuck is able to address some of his psychological needs as well. Given that he is the only person on the island, he is certainly autonomous in that he doesn’t have to answer to anyone, but his autonomy is challenged by nature. In order to feel autonomous in this survival situation, he must feel as if he has a handle on the environment, not that he is at its mercy. He achieves this by creating shelter, fashioning tools, drinking murky water from a natural rock basin, gathering dew and rain water, using the salt water from the ocean to cleanse his wounds, and eating food that he would otherwise not eat (the minnow, crab, etc.). In this situation, autonomy and competence go hand-in-hand. Either you demonstrate competence and achieve autonomy, or you fail miserably and fall to the mercy of the island and the elements. There isn’t much middle ground.

Chuck’s social need for affiliation/intimacy was met through the creation of his friend Wilson. This has been by far the most talked about aspect of this movie since its release, and shows that humans have an innate need for social contact with others. Had Chuck not chosen this object to direct his thoughts, feelings, and ideas toward, he would have internalized them. While personifying Wilson seems like a sign of insanity, it actually may have kept him from going crazy! The first thing he says to Wilson is, “The air got to it!” when he realizes that the fire is starting because the stick he was using was serendipitously split down the middle. Here he had someone to both share his excitement with and to witness his achievements (another social need).

The scenes involving starting the fire also demonstrated a great deal of persistence, and may have also fed into Chuck’s social needs for achievement and power. Regardless of how many injuries he sustained from the sticks, how many failed attempts he had, how exhausted his arms became from trying, he was determined to conquer the challenge of getting the fire started, knowing that it was another way for him to possibly be rescued (not to mention cook some food). This same behavior feeds into his goal-setting processes, which ultimately was to survive until being rescued, and to return to the love of his life.

Chuck knew that he had two choices: die alone on that island or figure out a way to get back out to sea to be found and rescued. When he explained to Wilson that they had four months to build the raft, Chuck was establishing some long-term goals based on his sense of hope for getting out of there. His confidence in his knowledge and abilities and his desire to return home to what he knew and loved was enough for him to take control of his destiny.

Building the raft was his long-term goal (to be completed by the time the trade winds shifted in four months), and the short-term goals included making the ropes, gathering the trees and limbs, and testing it out (for feedback on its effectiveness). In the meantime, Chuck was considering using the ropes he was making for another purpose entirely. He was preparing for the first option, to die alone on the island by choice. As he explained to his friend at the end of the movie, he had lost hope and felt that killing himself was the only real power he had in the face of this descending helplessness. It was his choice to live or die, but when he tried it and it didn’t work, he knew there was a reason that he had to do all he could to try to stay alive.

Sadly, in the end, he finds himself again in a survival situation having lost the love of his life – the one who gave him hope for all those years he spent alone on the island. The silver lining is that the hope inside him is still alive, and as he tells his friend, “Who knows what the tide could bring tomorrow?”

TERMS: physiological needs, psychological needs, social needs, determination, persistence, behavior, survival instincts, efficacy expectations, outcome expectations, hope, autonomy, goal-setting processes, long-term goals, short-term goals, control, power, helplessness, motivation, self-efficacy, competence, affiliation/intimacy, achievement, feedback

The movie Cast Away displayed many of the concepts we have been discussing in this course. It was clear to see that Chuck had many motivators and emotions throughout the movie. At some points in the movie he was externally motivated and at some points he was internally motivated. His internal motivation took a front row seat throughout most of the movie. Chucks internal motivators were those of need, cognitions, emotion. When the plane first crashed into the water, Chuck needed oxygen for the maintenance of life and he needed to find some kind of land to avoid the danger of the sea. When he engaged his life raft he expected it to inflate and believed it would work, it actually got hung up for a bit before it got out of the plane. He reacted according to the events that were going on around him. He had feelings of fear and his body physiologically prepared itself for what was currently going on at that moment the plane was going down. He knew he had to get out of the sinking plane or he was going to die.
Freud’s and Hull’s Drive theories can be applied to much of the movie. When he finds the cocoanuts on the island he is trying and trying to break them open. He throws them against a rock, hits them with a rock and eventually cuts them open with an ice skate blade that was in a FedEx box. He is persistent for a long period of time and because of that he succeeded. His behavior was totally motivated for the purpose of opening the cocoanut to satisfy the need of thirst. He also had total bodily needs for what he was deficient in. In another scene he collected water from leaves to keep hydrated and satisfy thirst, he created a spear and speared a crab for nourishment, and he found a cave to sleep in away from the wind and rain.
Throughout Chuck’s time on the island his brain generated appetites, needs, desires, and the full spectrum of emotions. When Chuck was finally able to make fire despite cutting his hand he was very excited. He made a large fire on the beach, danced around, and sang. His hypothalamus/medial forebrain bundle stimulated the endocrine system which stimulated the pituitary gland to release a hormone dopamine which generates good feelings. He had achieved his short term goal of making fire and was clearly happy about it. He also kept the picture of Kelly close by and would often look at it, that made him happy and I would think dopamine would have been released. In the process of making fire, when he cut his hand there was a point where he was very frustrated. He yelled, screamed, knocked things over, threw the volleyball that later became his friend “Wilson”. Cortisol the stress hormone was most likely released in response to that event. Later on in the movie when he talked about how he wanted to kill himself cortisol may also have been released. He felt there was no way off that island and that he would die alone. He stated “I had power over nothing; I couldn’t even kill myself the way I wanted.” Which was by hanging himself off a tree that was growing out of the side of a high ledge, he tested first and the tree limb broke. He had tried to get off the island in the raft earlier and had no luck. Instead he got banged up and was injured by some rock and coral. He had made the letters “HELP” in sand and in logs and that didn’t work. I would think there would have been a lot of cortisol released during those times. Once he made a friend in Wilson, he treated him as if he was a real person. He had conversations with him, took him places, got mad at him one night in the cave area threw him out, and then frantically went looking for him and stated that he was sorry. I would think that oxytocin the tend-and-befriend stress hormone would have been released when you consider Chuck and Wilson’s relationship.
Needs were a trend throughout the movie. Chuck had physiological needs like thirst and hunger. There was one point where he drank water from a puddle in the cave. When he was hungry ghrelin was released by the stomach which created the experience of hunger. When he first arrived he tried making fishing net out of the tool from a dress in the FedEx package and caught a very small fish to satisfy hunger. When he had been on the island a while he speared a large fish and ate it raw. The movie to me never portrayed a need for sex while he was on the island but he longed for Kelly, he missed her and very much wanted to get back to her. Chuck showed the psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Chuck had to have a lot of autonomy on that island, he had to learn how to fish, open cocoanuts, build a raft, learn the pattern of the ocean in response to the seasons. He figured out his position in miles in response to where everyone thought the plane went down. He did fail when he initially went out in the raft, but he learned from that and built one himself. By living on that island for 4 years he became competent in how he could get out of there. When he created Wilson there was some relatedness there, he was his friend that he had made due to a bloody hand print. He also kept Kelly’s picture the entire time, in many ways that motivated him to stay alive, the social need of intimacy. When Chuck had figured out how to get off the island, he was very strategic in doing so. He had calculated how many logs and how many strands of bark for rope that he would need for the raft. He would use the half a porta-potty wall as a sail. He figured out when the tide would be right and how to get over those huge waves. The social need of achievement happened when he made it off the island and out to sea. He had used a lot of autonomy and competence to get off that island in hopes of finding relatedness with actual people.
Terms: Internal motivation, external motivation, need, cognitions, emotion, hypothalamus/medial forebrain bundle, pituitary gland, dopamine, cortisol, oxytocin, Drive Theory, physiological needs, psychological needs, autonomy, competence, relatedness, intimacy, achievement.

The movie Cast Away had many great examples of motivation and needs. The main character, Chuck, is stranded on an island where he has nothing but a few FedEx boxes full of random things to keep him alive. His whole adult life, Chuck has lived in a world where he has been able to control what happens in his environment and now in a flash, he has no control over the environment he is in.
Satisfying his physiological needs was the first thing that Chuck was motivated to do in order to survive. Normally, he did not have to think about how he was going to find water to drink or food to eat, but once he got stranded on an island it was something he had to consider. Once he was stuck out in the middle of an island by himself, he had to find the drive within him to learn and accomplish new things. Chuck had to learn how to break open a coconut carefully in order to receive the juices from it. He had to learn how to catch fish and which type of fish were the best to catch in order to eat. Chuck also had to learn how to make fire and shelter for himself. These things were not easy. Chuck had to be motivated to try and try again until he succeeded because more than anything, Chuck was motivated to make it back home to his fiancée Kelly.
Chuck was also driven to satisfy his psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. When Chuck first got to the island he felt as if he had no autonomy. In fact, he felt that he had so little control over the environment that he was in that he tried to kill himself. When his suicide was not a success, he decided that it was time that he took control over his environment. That is what drove him to learn to about the island he was on in order to survive. Chuck was definitely felt competent in his life on the island because every day was a struggle for survival, but then ever day he knew he could make it and in the end he did. Wilson, the volleyball, filled Chuck’s need for relatedness. When Chuck was at his lowest point, it was Wilson that brought him through. He would talk to the volleyball as if it was a real person, helping him figure out what to do. Wilson helped Chuck stay motivated to doing what he had to do in order to get off of the island.
I would say that the social need for intimacy was Chuck’s number one motivation for getting off the island alive. Chuck was in love and wanted to spend the rest of his life with his fiancée Kelly. When the plane was crashing down, Chuck unbuckled his seatbelt in order to get the pocket-watch with Kelly’s picture in it that had fallen on the floor. Kelly’s picture/pocket-watch stayed with Chuck throughout the 4 years he was stranded on the island. Every time Chuck felt like he wouldn’t be able to make it through, he look at Kelly’s picture and that was enough motivation to strive to live.
All of these needs were driven by an external motivation and that would be the reward of going home. Chuck did not choose learn to live in the middle of an island by himself nor did he enjoy it, but the reward of going home to be with his family and friends in the end was well worth the effort.

Terms Used: physiological needs, hunger, thirst, motivation, external motivation, rewards, psychological needs, autonomy, competence, relatedness, intimacy, drive

The movie Cast Away shows many great examples of concepts learned in class and in the book. A few of these include behavior, motivation, and physiological and psychological needs. In the movie, the main character, Chuck, gets stranded on an island which causes him to behave in many different ways because of internal and external motivations mostly involving his needs for food, water, shelter, and relationships.

Because Chuck is so shocked and confused when he first gets to the island, he doesn’t feel the urge or drive for eating, drinking, or other normal day activities because the main thing he has been worried about it surviving the crash period. After a while, Chuck’s physiological needs came into play. He started to feel extreme hunger but didn’t have anything around to eat or drink. Eventually he found coconuts which he knew would have a little but to eat and drink. Because of the physiological needs to eat and drink, he spent a long time working very hard to open the coconut. Eventually, the coconuts just aren’t enough for him and his need for real food set in. He was driven to catch crab which would be a lot more tasty and nutritious. He was motivated to work very hard at jumping at and plunging into crab with a stick. After finally doing so, he caught one but was grossed out by the raw crab which motivated him to make a fire so he could be satisfied with real cooked food. He had intrinsic motivation to eat good food and feel competent that he did something worthwhile, so he worked extremely hard to make fire even until he stabbed his hand and it bled all over. When he finally created fire, he danced all over and yelled and sung. This was because his need for competence was fulfilled and he could eat good food.

Another need Chuck was deprived of at first was the need for relationships. Chuck looked at Kelly’s photo over and over trying to imagine she was actually there because he needed someone to feel close to. When this wasn’t enough, he actually made a “friend” out of a ball by drawing a face on it and talking to it like it was a real person. This was the best thing he could do to satisfy his need for relationships. When his “friend, Wilson” floated away, Chuck cried and screamed for a while because Wilson was all he had and Chuck had actually become very close with him. His need for a friend was gone again.

Another example of a psychological need Chuck has was the need for autonomy. The only thing that Chuck was seemingly able to control was how he died. He was motivated to try to hang himself just so that he could have a little autonomy in his life. But, when he tested his technique, the branch broke and his idea was unsuccessful. It’s crazy how a person’s need for autonomy could actually lead them to try to commit suicide just for a little control!

Chuck tried to figure out ways to get off of the island because he was almost going crazy with his needs not being met. He was driven to risk his own life by drifting out to sea to try to find help. The first time he did so, he was flipped off of his raft and injured badly by coral on the ocean bottom. He had a goal to come up with a better raft that would let him get over the waves. Because he had a goal, he was personally driven to prove to himself that he was competent and could escape if he tried hard enough. Eventually, he actually did get past the huge waves and made it to a ship which brought him home. If he wouldn’t have set goals to not die on the island, he probably wouldn’t have made it home, but he was determined.

Overall, Chuck was mostly internally motivated to survive and try to get home. I feel that most of this internal motivation comes from his love for his girlfriend and wanting to be with her again. Because there wasn’t much externally around him, he couldn’t be externally motivated much except for when he opened packages and came up with ideas for how to use those items. But, most of his motivation came internally to not die on the island and to be with Kelly again.

Needs, internal motivation, external motivation, drive, competence, autonomy, physiological needs, psychological needs, thirst, hunger, relationships, determination, goals

Cast Away captured the concept that motivation is always changing, motivation has varying levels, and people can have a variety of motives at a certain point in time. Chuck is the main character is the movie that is involved in a plane crash. The accident left Chuck alone on an island.
Several brain based motivation processes were present in the movie. Initially during the plane crash, Chuck’s adrenal glands would have released epinephrine and norepinephrine, triggering his fight/flight response. The crash would have also involved Chuck’s sympathetic nervous system, accelerating his general arousal and alertness. The crash would have caused stimulation to the amygdale causing a feeling of fear. On the Island, Chuck’s hypothalamus regulated his motivations for hunger, sex, and thirst. Dopamine was released in Chuck’s brain after he took appropriate action to secure homeostasis. Chuck’s orbitofrontal cortex would be involved in considering his options to maintain homeostasis.
- The movie showed many great examples portraying needs. When needs are nurtured/satisfied, life, growth, and well being are maintained or enhanced. The three types of needs present in the movie are Physiological, Social, and Psychological. Physiological needs include thirst, hunger, and sex. According to the drive theory, physiological deprivations create biological needs. If the need continues to be unsatisfied, the biological deprivation increases and occupy’s attention and generates drive. Drive energizes and directs our behaviors toward satisfying the biological need. Physiological needs in Cast Away included thirst and hunger. After being deprived of water, Chuck became extremely motivated to satisfy his physiological need. Chuck’s motivation was expressed in the movie when he used what tools and knowledge he had to open up coconuts or when he drank rain water from a leaf. Chuck’s drive to satisfy his need for hunger was expressed when he went fishing. Food deprivation would have caused the release of Grehlin, causing Chuck to feel hungry. Psychological needs were also present in Cast Away. One type of social need is autonomy. Chuck showed autonomy when he worked on building a raft by determining which materials he would make the raft with and when he would work on building the raft. Building a raft would allow Chuck to accomplish his goal of going back home. Competence is another type of a psychological need. Competence is the desire to interact effectively with the environment. An example of competence is when chuck rubbed sticks together to create a fire, used sticks to create shelter, or when he created the raft. Another need present in the movie was social need, including achievement, intimacy, and relatedness. Relatedness is the desire for social interaction. Chuck’s desire for relatedness was shown throughout the movie in his conversations with Wilson. Chuck became devastated when Wilson fell off the raft and rescued Wilson, displaying Chuck’s intense need for relatedness. Intimacy was another social need that was displayed in the movie. The picture of Chuck’s wife reminded him of his warm and secure relationship, which served as motivation for him to work toward getting back home.

Terms: adrenal glands, epinephrine, norepenephrine, sympathetic nervous system, dopamine, amygdale, hypothalamus, orbitofrontal cortex, social needs, psychological needs, physiological needs, competence, achievement, intimacy, relatedness, autonomy, drive theory

the movie Cast Away definitely revolved around needs. being secluded from society for an extended period of time,you definitely saw his will to survive, you saw his instincts kick in, and his drive. if you recall these are components of the Grand Theory which sees to explain the full range of motivated actions.

we saw his will to survive in various scenes. for example staying alive for four years on a deserted island. or an even better example of will was his tenacity to get off the island. he did everything he could to prepare for his voyage off the island. he kept record of tide patterns, along with wind patterns. the will he had to stay alive and get back to kelly was intense.
almost instantly we saw his instincts kick in, if not by making shelter, finding food, making fire. we saw various hormones being portrayed such as testosterone when out on the raft trying to escape the island and oxytocin which is the bonding hormone such seen when he made wilson a volleyball into his companion, someone who was also there experiencing what he was experiencing, someone to talk to.
drive the servicing of bodily needs. such as making shelter to keep him safe from anything that may have been on the island. acquiring food and water to keep himself alive. and when the coconuts weren't cutting it he started using his environment to make a spear to catch fish, using wood to make fire thus enabling him to cook food and nourish himself. and also a good example his record keeping of wind and ride patterns so that he could be able to successfully leave the island.

will, instincts, drive, grand theory, internal motives, hormones: testosterone, oxytocin dopamine,

A person’s needs are conditions that are necessary for life and growth. When all needs are met the person is satisfied and content. When the needs have not been met the body is in danger and damage can be done biologically and psychologically. In the movie Castaway, Chuck experiences needs in a very extreme way. The three main types of needs are physiological, psychological, and social. When first deserted on the island Chuck must find a way to meet all three of these needs or else he faces death.
Physiological needs are those that involve biological systems, and when these needs are not meant it can be life-threatening. These include thirst, hunger, and sex. Homeostasis is crucial to body functions, for the body must stay in a state of equilibrium. When not in equilibrium the body generates motivational states to achieve equilibrium once more. When Chuck first washes up on the island he must find a way to meet these needs with very few resources. Drive is the psychological motivation that directs his behavior to meet his needs. He faces the drive to find fresh water, and resorts to drinking from a muddy puddle and sipping drops of water off leaves in order to quench his thirst. By finding fresh water in these unlikely sources he is slowly reaching homeostasis. Just as he faces immense thirst, Chuck faces immense hunger. He is driven to satisfy this hunger by eating food he most likely would not eat at home in Memphis. He hacks into a coconut just to sip on the coconut milk, eats raw fish straight from the sea, and cooks the little bit of crab meat he can get. This drive forces him to find sustenance from wherever he can, even from sources that are unpleasant. Sex is the third physiological need. Chuck’s need for sex is not addressed in the movie as often as his need for water and food. It is, however, seen in the end, when Chuck and Kelly embrace and kiss and Chuck finally lets his sexual urges come over him. These three physiological needs are all crucial to Chuck’s well-being, and his thirst and hunger in particular must be addressed immediately when Chuck washes ashore the island.
Psychological needs are also very important. Competence is a psychological need Chuck faces, and is the need to be effective in one’s environment. As he has never been in a situation like this before, he is not competent in his environment. He has no idea what he is doing or how to survive on a deserted island. He becomes frustrated when he cannot get a fire started – this is an example of how he is not competent in his environment. Yet by persisting he eventually becomes competent and learns how to get the fire started. This causes him to exhibit very positive emotions and meet his psychological need for competence.
Social needs are very much related to psychological needs. We are social beings and need social interaction to be psychologically stable. When Chuck is stranded on the island, he is by himself for years with no other human being there to socialize with him. He is presented with a lack of relatedness, which is actually a psychological need. Relatedness is the need to form close emotional bonds with others. And while Chuck does not have another human to form a close bond with, he finds this connection in a volleyball that he names Wilson. He becomes very close to Wilson, having conversations with him, dressing him up, and taking him everywhere with him. When Wilson is lost to sea after a storm Chuck is very emotional and seems to lose the will to live.
Many needs are present in the movie Castaway. Instances of physiological needs, psychological needs, and social needs are all shown in Chuck’s quest towards survival on the desert island.
Terms: Needs, physiological needs, psychological needs, social needs, thirst, hunger, sex, homeostasis, motivational states, drive, competence, relatedness

In the movie “Cast Away”, Tom Hanks’ character, Chuck Nolan is ultimately driven by time. His job is so strict about time deadlines on package and mail delivery that you see an unusual instance of warehousing – they divide the trucks and repack on the street just to meet a deadline. You also notice that when he calls his girlfriend, he mentions exact times of his arrival; he is constantly looking at his watch or pager, and even buys his girlfriend one for a Christmas gift. When they get to their Christmas dinner, an unexpected business trip causes them to have to rearrange their times of being together just to make things work. Finally as he is about to board the plane, Nolan states “I’ll be right back,” as if he were just going to another room for a couple seconds.
When Nolan crashes, and finally reaches land, he ultimately wants help and to go home. It shows repeated attempts of him first trying to scream help, then writing “HELP” in the sand and then using logs in the same format. After a while of being stranded on the island, he finally sees a ship. Automatically, he reverts to old instincts – scream for help, use a flashlight. Realizing these will not help him, he decides to make a break for it on his half blown up air raft. As he is injured and drifts into shore, you can tell he starts to give up hope. The concept of time is still apparent when you see his cave writings – a calendar – and he can tell how the tide is by the sun and weather. Timing is still the key as he works to make his deadline for building the wooden raft and take off. After being home, it seems as if time is nothing as he starts to realize it really got him nowhere with his ultimate goal – Kelly. He has to tell himself over again not to give up and to keep breathing. At the end of the movie, he doesn’t really have a plan of where he’s going, as if it’s a complete fresh start… again.
Another focus for motivation was his needs. His motivation is always changing – rising and dropping. The most needs you see are the will to live, die. You also see his needs for survival – thirst, hunger, intimacy, achievement, power and relatedness.
When he first lands on the island, he collects packages and keeps them organized. He then explores his surroundings and realizes he needs proper clothing to survive the lay of the land – coral and rocks. He finally gets desperate and opens the packages to see what he has to work with. One package, he leaves untouched, which ultimately gives him a sense of hope and the will and persistence to survive. His survival skills are continually put to the test as he first only has coconut milk, puddle water, and raw fish to eat. When he created the fire, a good event, dopamine released in his brain and caused positivity and achievement. As he begins to really develop loneliness, he seeks out friendship in a volleyball, Wilson, to reinforce relatedness and other psychological needs.
Over the span of 4 years, he becomes quite skilled in survival. His shelters are more advanced and this gives him a better sense of getting off the island. His will for his love, Kelly, continually motivates him to do the things he’s doing to go home. Since Wilson is his only friend, you see common relationship actions as they fight when they begin to make rope and apologies when he throws him away. When Wilson is washed away at sea, Chuck is filled with great sadness; he loses his sail, then Wilson, his raft is messed up and he flushes away his oars. He ultimately gave up, just as he is finally rescued.
After his return, a celebration party just seems a bit overwhelming. All he really wants is Kelly. She doesn’t talk to him initially, and his celebratory food is what has kept him alive and he shows a sense of disgust and anger. He finally sees Kelly and there’s a sense of hope as she ends up kissing him, but he’s shot back down as she “goes home”. He ends up talking to his best friend about how he couldn’t even kill himself the way he wanted to, and how he has lost her again. A seemingly endless cycle for this man, he just can’t catch a break. Every odd working against him and his motivation and emotional well-being. Though he shows determination and persistence as he says he must continue to breathe.

Terms: drive, instinct, hope, trial and error, persistence, goal, needs, motivation, psychological, physiological, intimacy, relatedness, positive, dopamine, psychological, determination, well-being, emotion

“Cast Away” had many different types of motivation examples in it. In the beginning scene, with (Chuck) at the Fed Ex building, he was yelling at the workers, because they were not meeting the goals Fed Ex has for packages. He had goal setting on his brain, because he knew the importance of meeting these goals and getting packages delivered efficiently on time. Jump to the plan crash and him being on the island. The first types of motivation seen are those physiological needs. These are needs that are essential for life. First off, Chuck realized his need for water, the need for rescue (writing HELP in the sand, first with his foot, than with drift wood), the need for shelter, etc. He saw the cave, but the need for shelter was not as strong as the need for water. Chuck had a drive inside him to survive, and this drive was reinforced by the pocket watch of Kelly, he kept with him throughout his whole ordeal on the island. This drive is the feeling inside him that directs his behavior to fulfill these needs.

The uncomfortable knowledge of having no food, no water, and no human contact drove Hanks to change his behavior; he became motivated to survive. The drive Chuck experienced was to stay alive; fulfill what his body needed him to fulfill (getting food and water to maintain bodily functions). Throughout the first part of the movie, where Hanks is just getting used to this new island, we see him try many different ways to fulfill the different needs. He needed water/liquid, so begins his quest to open a coconut. After trying many different times, he finally succeeds, which in turns motivates him to keep going. He begins to collect the packages left floating in the ocean, and see him to try and spear a fish unsuccessfully. However, as hard as Chuck was trying, he became very demotivated many times in the movie as well. We see his hopes jump to a high when he sees what appears to be a ship light on the ocean…He gives himself a false sense of security that he is going to be rescued. Another de-motivational time Hanks experiences is his first time trying to get off the ocean.

Psychological needs are also evident in “Cast Away”. Chuck had to adapt to the new surroundings, figure out ways to get around without cutting his feet (tore up shirt to make shoes). In the beginning part on the island, Chuck is very unskilled and not competent in anyway. Four years later, we see Hanks has mastered many skills, such as fishing & spearing, getting water from leaves and coconuts, and having an effective ‘house’ (the cave, which is inside away from the elements). There was failure and frustration in the movie, when Hanks trying to make fire, cut his hand open. Chuck experienced a difficult, new task in creating a fire, which led to this failure and his avoidance behaviors in trying to make fire again; he did not want to cut his hand open again.

The last type of need in “Cast Away” that Chuck strives to fulfill is that of the Social Need. He knows he is all alone on the island, but we see him light when he sees a body in the ocean. Despite being dead, this body leads Hanks to open up the packages, where he finds ‘Wilson’, a volleyball who Chuck begins to converse with and talks to throughout the movie. This is one relationship on the island which fulfills Hanks social need; the need to be around people-this is called Relatedness (a psychological need). We see Hanks relationship and social need tested first when Wilson gets chucked outside of the cave after an argument between Hanks & the volleyball happens. Chuck, at first, is unaffected by Wilson being gone, but then averts directly to sadness and worry when he can’t find Wilson. The social relationship between Wilson and Chuck finally comes to an end, when Wilson pops off the raft and begins to float away. Chuck had to make a decision, one that would have fulfilled his social needs (saving Wilson, the only contact/relationship he’s had in the past four years) or fulfill his physiological needs (keep a hold of the raft, his safety, so he can live). Chuck chose to satisfy the physiological need, showing up he was more driven to survive. This came with a price however, because we see Hanks crying and feeling very depressed after losing Wilson. We see him lose all motivation after losing Wilson, when he tosses into the ocean the paddles to his raft. He had lost hope, and the will to live. One piece of motivation he had throughout the entire movie, even after losing Wilson was his love and memories of Kelly; that is what kept him alive, was the pocket watch with her picture, and that is what he whispered towards the end of the movie when the ship is sailing by him. There were at times in the movie when Chuck blamed Wilson for things going wrong (the scenes when he and Wilson were talking about the size of the search area), and that was one example of an external locus of control. Jump to the end of the movie, when talking to his friend after visiting Kelly. He tells his friend that “I should not have gotten on that plane…I lost her all over again”. He was blaming himself for losing Kelly, not blaming the plane going down or blaming her for moving on. This was a prime example of an internal locus of control.
Throughout the whole movie, we see Chuck experience all sorts of different needs, and using trial and error in satisfying those needs. He has mastered skills and became competent to help him survive, and had mastered the skill of Autonomy-a need to experience personal endorsement in one’s behavior. He had to let his wants & needs guide his behavior, which in turn helped him to survive four years alone.

Terms: Motivation, Goal Setting, Goals, Drive, Physiological Needs, Hope, Social Needs, Mastery, Psychological Needs, Depression, Failure, Avoidance Behavior, Competence, Will, Hunger, thirst, Relationship, Internal Locus of Control, External Locus of Control,