Cast Away

Cast Away demonstrates a vast array of principles discussed in our text. Most notably in the scenes I saw were principles from chapter four relating to the 'physiological needs' of 'thirst' and 'hunger' as well as the 'social need' of 'affiliation' or 'intimacy'. Also very apparent was 'Freud's Drive Theory' found in chapter two in several scenes throughout the movie.

When the plane crashes and Tom Hanks is stranded on the deserted island, human 'instinct' springs into actions. In order to survive, he knows there are necessary actions to take such as finding shelter,water, food, and signaling for help. This instinct wasn't learned or mechanistic, but rather subliminal in nature to survive. Tom adapted to the environment he was dealt by building shelter, making weapons to kill food, opening packages to gather supplies for survival, and more.

When Tom is swept ashore the deserted island, he is faced with a multitude of challenges. His very first thought was probably not to find food right away, but instead an intense surge of fear and grief for his unfortunate situation. When he wakes up the next day on the beach, food becomes a leader at the forefront of his brain as an urgent need. 'Freud's Drive Theory' can explain the process Tom endures as he searches and catches his food. The first component, 'Drive's Source', indicates a bodily defecit or the lack of food present on the island resulting in hunger. Next, 'Driver's Impetus' occurs as the deficit intensifies and produces psychological discomfort. Tom has most likely never had to hunt in order to eat so his failed attempts at spearing fish produce a great deal of anxiety. Third, 'Driver's Object' acts to decrease and eliminate this anxiety and rid the bodily deficit. He knows in order to survive he must come up with an alternative way to hunt so he uses a mesh material to create a net to more effectively catch his food. Finally, 'Driver's Aim' successfully satisfies the bodily deficit quieting the deficit for at least a period of time. When Tom catches the crab and fish with his new means of hunting he has satisfied this component.

After a day on the island without clean water to drink, the 'phsyiological need' for thirst becomes critical to Tom. 'Intraorganismic mechanisms' inside his body start aiming his attention toward the retrieval of water. When a coconut falls out of the tree next to him, he sees an opportunity to fullfil this need. He has already lost a great deal of water to perspiration, urination, breathing, and bleeding, but exerts a great deal of effort to the point of exhaustion in order to crack the coconut for water. He never reaches 'thirst satiety'due to the limited amount of it on the island, but enough to relax his anxiety and discomfort.

The 'social need of intamacy' comes into full effect near the midway point of the movie. Tom has been stranded on an island for several days without any human reaction and the possibility of never interacting with a human again. This desire to find someone on the island, be back with his wife, and find a rescuer becomes so intense that he makes a volleyball (Wilson) his best friend. Although not as urgent and important as his physiological needs, once the latter have been fulfilled it becomes a very pressing matter. He has lost so much hope that Wilson is able to fulfill his social need of intamacy for a period of time.

ME Terms: 'physiological needs' 'thirst' 'hunger' 'social need' 'affiliation' 'intimacy' 'Freud's Drive Theory' 'instinct' 'Drive's Source' 'Driver's Impetus' 'Driver's Object' 'Driver's Aim' 'Intraorganismic mechanisms' 'thirst satiety' 'social need of intamacy' 'phsyiological need'

Really with these first 4 chapters you could relate everything Chuck (Tom Hanks) does to the study of motivation. For example an antecedent condition was that the plane crashed in the ocean. The physiological need for air occurs compelling the body to want to breathe. This motivates chuck to stay alive and swim to the surface. While the plane was crashing I could see that Chuck’s brain mechanisms were working. The threatening situation was the plane crash causing stimulation of the Amygdala. Chuck’s heart was racing caused by stimulation on the lateral hypothalamus, he made a frightened face do to the stimulation on the trigeminal facial never, and he was breathing faster due to the stimulation of the parabracchial. Because the framework for motivation is so broad I could really apply it to any scenario. Chuck’s physical and mental reactions in the plane are just one of the many examples I could have used.

When chuck is making a fire and sees smoke there is a dopamine release in his brain. He experiences great excitement and is encouraged to continue trying. The dopamine release initiates goal-directed behavior causing him to continue making fire differently from the way he had been trying for days with no results.
Passing out after removing his tooth is a function of the brain. When the brain causes heart rate to increase and rapid breathing, sometime the body cannot keep up. Passing out saves the body from having to consciously feel pain tear through the body.

This movie is mostly related to chapter 4 because of its depiction of hunger and thirst, both of which are two main physiological needs. I am sure eating a little raw fish, or eating the guts out of a crab leg are not normal eating habits for Chuck. Up to this point in his life he was not food deprived enough to motivate him to eat such things. However, on the island the lack of food causes a lack of plasma glucose in the body and made chuck very hungry. Because he was hungry and had no other options, chuck was motivated to eat uncooked fish and crab. As the movie goes on you can see, by his decrease in body fat, his long-term hunger balances out. His body is adapting to the amount of food available on the island and chuck appears to be less hungry by the end of the movie than he was at the beginning.

When chuck first gets to the island he is very thirsty. He uses coconuts milk to satisfy his thirst. Eventually he stops though. There are two reasons based from these chapters that could explain why. First it is possible that he drank so much that his body was giving him negative feedback. His body could have been saying it was no longer thirsty and Chuck needed to stop drinking. The second reason may be that the urgency of how thirsty Chuck was fell below that of his other motives. It could be that his hunger over powered his thirst motivating him to hunt rather than continue drinking.

Wilson portrays Chuck’s psychological and social needs for relatedness and affiliation. It brings him comfort to feel as though he is not alone on the island and give him “someone” to talk to. When he thinks he has lost Wilson, he becomes distraught and sad. Wilson kept Chuck’s emotions under control and gives him positive feelings.

ME terms you used: Amygdala, parabracchial, lateral hypothalamus, physiological need, negative feedback, psychological need, Motive, social needs, affiliation, relatedness

It is easy to attribute many of the terms from the text to this movie. Chuck (Tom Hanks) is a very motivated person to begin with. He is trying to get his company FedEx off the ground and to make it a big competitor with UPS. In the beginning of the film we see that Chuck’s source of motivation is Achievement Strivings. He wants to beat UPS time. (This is shown when he is talking to the FedEx employees in Russia at the beginning of the film.)

Later Chuck’s plane crashes in the ocean and he swims to an island. When he gets there he calls for help, writes the word HELP in the sand etc. to find that he is alone on the island. It isn’t long before he experiences drive. (According to the text, Pg. 29; Drive arose from a functional biology, one that understood that the function of behavior was to service bodily needs.) He next finds that he is in need of food, water and shelter. (Pg. 77; A need is any condition within the person that is essential and necessary for life, growth, and well-being.) He has an internal motive to fill these needs. Some examples; Chuck tries to eat raw crab and realizes that there won’t be much to eat if he doesn’t find some way to cook it. He spends all day trying to create a fire by rubbing two sticks together and by the end of the movie he also knows how to spear fish. For thirst chuck hollowed out holes in coconuts. When they were empty he would save them up for when it rained. He collected water by letting water drain into the empty coconut.

Chuck experiences cognitions. (Pg. 9; Cognitions refer to mental events, such as thoughts, beliefs, expectations, and the self-concept.) He has thoughts about how to get off the island. He also is worried that he may never get off the island. At the end of the movie he confesses that he thought he was going to die there.

Tom Hank’s character also experiences the need for social affiliation and intimacy. The loneliness he feels becomes so great that he creates Wilson from a volleyball that washed up the beach, from the crash. He talks to Wilson about Kelly and constantly explains the plan about how they are going to get off the island.

When Chuck finally is found floating in the water by a French ship he begins to experience Homeostasis. His environment changes from his lifestyle on the island for four years and coming back to society. Chuck sleeps on the floor instead of in his bed, he still looks at the watch with Kelly’s picture in it with a flashlight and when he sees the crab at the welcome back party just sitting there ready to eat it takes him awhile to readjust.

The last term I really wanted to focus on was emotion. There is a lot of emotion in this movie. The one that is obvious is Chuck’s emotions toward Kelly and vice versa. At the very end of the movie Chuck talks to his friend Stan about his experience and where he stands with Kelly. (Steps of emotion; Feelings, Physiological Preparedness, Function and Expression.) With Stan he expresses his feelings about being back (“I have ice in my glass”), he talks about how he’s lost Kelly all over again because she’s married (Physiocal Preparedness) he talks about the only thing he can do now is just to keep breathing (Function) and he expresses his heartache about the whole situation to Stan.

TERMS: Motivation, Internal Motivation, Needs, Drive, Cognitions, Homeostasis, Emotion, Social Need of Affiliation and Intimacy, Source of Motivation

Cast Away is a good example of many of the topics in our textbook and it demonstrates so many of the principles we have learned about thus far and will continue to learn about as we study motivation and emotion. From the very beginning of the movie, we learn that the main character, Chuck, is a very motivated person. He works very hard at his job and at everything he does. Aside from his job, the first time I noticed him demonstrating his motivation for something in the movie is the scene when the airplane is crashing. Instead of reaching for his life vest like he should so he can survive the crash, Chuck reaches to the other side of the plane and grabs the watch from his girlfriend, Kelli. From his motivation to reach for the watch instead of something that could possibly help him to survive, we see what is truly important to him. When he is stranded on the island, we see even more clearly his sense of motivation and how that increases as he struggles to stay alive.

The main principle from the book that I noticed in the movie was the different types of needs that exist in our bodies as humans. These needs include physiological needs, which we have learned about in detail in Chapter 4, and also psychological and social needs. Related to our bodily needs, another idea from Chapter 4 that is demonstrated in the movie is Clark Hull’s drive theory of motivation.

The physiological needs depicted in the movie are hunger and thirst. As the movie goes on, you can see how Chuck’s needs for thirst and hunger increase and how he responds to those needs. It begins on only the second day, when he responds to his physiological needs by finding the coconuts and then searching for some way to open the coconut because he knows it’s vital to his survival. We continue to see this same phenomenon demonstrated as the movie goes on and Chuck becomes more and more desperate for food and water to keep him alive. The psychological deprivations he is experiencing create biological needs within him and those turn into a motivational drive to do everything he can to fill those needs and stay alive. By trying to satisfy these needs, his body is trying to maintain homeostasis, which will not be reached because he does not have enough resources on the island he is stranded on.

Another point in the movie where we see Chuck’s sense of motivation is when he sees that ship in the distance and struggles to try and make himself seen and get their attention. He decides to leave the island on his only floatation device and tries to reach the ship because he is motivated to save himself and hopefully reach humanity where all of his needs can be fulfilled. However, he doesn’t succeed in reaching humanity at that point.

We also can see how Chuck has been deprived of his social and psychological needs as well as his physiological needs. Humans need a sense of intimacy and relatedness with others, and on this island by himself Chuck doesn’t have that. His body has that type of psychological drive to establish some sort of connection or communication with others, and when the volleyball he unwraps from the FedEx package becomes a sort of companion to him, we see his motivation to attempt to establish that sense of connection to someone, or in this case something, else. We feel a sense of sadness when he loses Wilson, as it is his only companion at that time.

Terms: motivation, emotion, physiological needs, social needs, psychological needs, Hull’s drive theory, biological needs, homeostasis, deprivation, intimacy, relatedness, thirst, hunger.

The movie Castaway is one of the best examples when it comes to displaying how our motivation is triggered and how far we will go to survive. At the beginning of the film Chuck is portrayed as a busy man that runs on a tight schedule. He is highly motivated by success at work and takes less interest in other priorities, such as making time for his wife. When his world gets flipped upside down he is forced to start from the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and fulfill each step thereafter. The first of these needs are the physiological items.

Chuck Noland’s body is telling him that it’s time act. As his physiological mechanisms begin to kick in he finds himself on the hunt for food and fluids. Starving, and equally as thirsty, Chuck’s negative feedback system will make sure that he does not eat or drink an unhealthy amount. After Chuck fulfills these basic needs, his motivation is turned toward safety where he realizes he will need a shelter. Now that he is finally in good health, Chuck can turn his “energy and direction” to making sure that he is finally emotionally stable.

At this point, Chuck’s neurotransmitters are all over the board as he is getting the full effect of being in a state of outright autonomy. His serotonin, endorphin, and GABA levels are either too large, or they are depleting. His body is telling him what he needs to do in order to recover and return back to a state of complete homeostasis. In chapter 3 it is determined that the amygdala learns to “fear environmental dangers.” Chuck’s amygdala has been hard at work ever since he washed up on the island. After spending four years on the island, Chuck is entirely entrenched in his new lifestyle. He creates a friend by drawing a smiley face on a bloody volleyball handprint. By doing this, he is able to fill a psychological void. Having someone to talk to helps Chuck to be able to calm himself down and not feel as though he is completely by himself. When he loses “Wilson”, Chuck acts as if it were his own brother. He loses his will to fight for life and almost gives up. This shows how our emotions can change us when we are deprived of basic psychological needs.

Chuck’s main goal was just to get off of that island. His biggest source of extrinsic motivation was the hope that someday he would make it back to civilization and see his wife again. His intrinsic motivation was something he was born with, and gave him the strength to overcome such impossible circumstances. Everyone has different sources of motivation. Whether you are motivated by your significant other, your profession, friends, family, or just by the will to live; it doesn’t make a difference. We as humans cannot help or change the way we are driven because our motivation was biologically embedded into us when we were born.

Terms used: motivation, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, physiological needs/mechanisms, negative feedback system, neurotransmitters, autonomy, serotonin, endorphin, GABA, homeostasis, amygdala, psychological needs, extrinsic motivation, intrinsic motivation, biologically.

Cast Away relates well to Motivation and Emotion’s Chapters 1 – 4. Throughout the movie, Chuck Nolan (Tom Hanks) had motive to survive. The love of his life kept him going. When he got hopeless and tried out the noose on a piece of wood and throwing it off the cliff, his device did not work. He then again felt motivated to keep on surviving by changing his cognitions (pg. 9). In accordance to William James’s instinct theory of motivation (pg. 28), Chuck’s instincts translated into goal-directed behavior due to certain stimulus. For example, when Chuck was thirsty, he directed his behavior toward cracking open a coconut and drinking its juices. Although it took him many measures to break open the coconut and he did not succeed in quenching his thirst with the first coconut, Chuck keep directing his behavior toward his goal. Drive arose to replace instinct in order to service his bodily needs.

Although not physically seen, the hypothalamus (pg. 55) regulates physiological needs, such as pleasures with water and food. The hypothalamus regulates the body’s internal environment in order to adapt to the external environment. By living on a deserted island for 4 years, Chuck Nolan’s hypothalamus had to adapt to its external environment with the lack of water and variety of foods. It’s also had to adapt to consuming less and store more in order to survive. When Chuck’s tooth gave him so much pain, the drive theory (pg. 79) kicked in so that he could depict the psychological discomfort even though it created much more pain to knock the tooth out.

From the beginning, Chuck portrayed types of needs (pg. 78). First, he tried to fulfill his physiological needs. Nolan tried to quench his thirst by driving to open the coconut. He would also scavenger for leaves with rain water sitting upon them. Chuck also had a need to fulfill his hunger. He ate raw minnows, crab, and fish. In order to tame his hunger needs he needed to be able to cook the crab so he did what he could to make fire. Nolan fulfilled his safety needs by wrapping his shirt around himself to keep from burning and when he hurt his feet on the rocks, he used his clothing to make a protective padding around his feet and his leg and hand when they got cut open. Chuck tried to gratify his psychological needs, such as autonomy, by deciding when, where, and how he was going to die by hanging himself. He used his competence to make canisters out of the coconuts for water and also by making friction with the right amount of air matter to make fire. He also used what he could from the FedEx packages. Nolan felt a sense of achievement and power when he created fire and when he used the tin as a sail to make it past the waves to escape from the island.

After hurting his hand, Chuck Nolan threw a volleyball in anger, getting blood on it. When he calmed down, he looked at the volleyball and the bloody hand-print looked like a face. Chuck was in need of relatedness and affiliation. He wanted a companion so that he wasn’t in the situation alone, so he made the volleyball (Wilson) into his friend to fulfill his social need. The motives that lead Chuck Nolan to survive ended up no longer existing in his life. He not only lost Wilson, but also the love of his life. If he were to lose those two things before he was safe again, I don’t know if he would have had as much of a drive or motivation to push on.

Terms: motive; cognitions; instinct theory of motivation; drive; hypothalamus; psychological needs; physiological needs; social needs; drive theory

The movie, Cast Away demonstrates many types of motivation. Tom Hanks' character is stranded on an island where he displays the most primitive and simple motivational forces. An analysis of his behaviors leaves a clear outline to the types of motivation which Chuck displays.

The most basic type of motivation displayed is the health. This is a primitive instinct but all the more crucial. He is driven by physical responses and chemicals to fulfill his thirsts and hunger, but also a drive to survive. When Chuck's plane crashes and he believes that he will drown, he pulls the plug for the flotation-raft and is projected through the sea to its surface. He is able to climb aboard and ride out the waves from the comfort of the tiny raft.

Upon nearly being struck by a falling coconut, Chuck tries to discover ways to get to the inside of the coconut. He tries by throwing it at a wall of rock, hitting it with a sharp stone, and eventually trying to “saw his way in by the rock which had been his sharp stone. He finally figures it out by using the sharp rock as a corkscrew of sorts to get the water out of the coconut. He starts to collect rain water as a way of gaining fresh water. At one point he even drinks out of dirty muddy water, just because water is a basic need for survival.

Another type of motivation which he displays is relatedness motivation. Chuck opens the mail, as the benefits far outweigh any possible costs, and finds a volleyball in one of the packages. This volleyball becomes an important symbol throughout the movie, as Chuck's only companion on his journey. The island is completely isolated but humans are social creatures and socialization is necessary to our survival, and is part of our hierarchy of needs. And so, the volleyball becomes “Wilson”. Wilson is unable to care for himself and gives Chuck a sense of purpose but mostly a social tool for interaction.

The motivational tool that stands out the most in this movie is the need for personal control. Chuck has no personal control of his life once becoming stranded on the island. His life previously was all about control; down to the very last second. The plane crash was the start of his loss of control. There was nothing he could do to help the pilots and could only watch as the plane went hurling towards the ocean. Upon arriving, he had no way of communicating with any outside forces about where he was located, which gave him little hope for ever being rescued. The lowest form of personal control was his inability to even kill himself the way he wished to. When he came up with how to commit suicide and before he actually attempted to hang himself, the branch he planned on anchoring himself to broke as he tossed down a different tree branch in place of himself. Now that he can't even die the way he wishes to, his sole purpose is to keep on living.

Shortly before he is rescued, Chuck loses an important part of his life on the island: “Wilson”. Chuck calls out to Wilson, his true companion on the island in an emotional scene. Their parting was intense and often quoted when people ask of the movie. This is because it is the last and final struggle for Chuck's personal control. He tries desperately to rescue Wilson but is unsuccessful and the sea takes its captive. Thus, Chuck is alone, on the ocean with no control and must completely give in to the sea and fate.

When Chuck arrives back “home”, things are not as one always hopes when they dreamed of going home for as long of a time as Chuck had. Even after being rescued, Chuck still is struggling with personal control. His truest love which gave him hope throughout his struggle has moved on and married someone else. He has no control over her emotions or feelings for him, but only knows his own. Kelly lost her own personal control when her lover's plane went down years ago; forfeiting her dreams because they seemed wrong without him.

But in the end, Chuck is allowed to live his life nearly anyway he wishes. He gets a fresh start at life and ends on a crossroads. He has many decisions which he will get to make. The motivation behind which decision he makes, is his own. He has no ties to the past, and can look to the future with a new hope and strength. He has a greater appreciation for what it is like to have no control, and thus a greater appreciation to let things take their course.

Motivation. Types of Motivation. Health. Basic Need. Hierarchy of needs. Relatedness. Personal Control. Emotion. Feeling. Drive.

There is a lot of motivation in this movie. In the very beginning Chuck (Tom) is attempting to motivate the Russian workers into action. Chuck is motivated by improving his companies times and getting it to succeed.

The second motivation I noticed was one that contradicted most ideas. In Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs physiological needs are above psychological. However, when the plane is crashing Chuck must choose between grabbing the pocket watch given to him by his girlfriend and a life jacket. Maslow would say that Chuck would have grabbed the life jacket because it is essential to survival. However, Chuck goes for the pocket watch because of the sentimental value. In that life threatening moment, Chuck was more motivated to keep an object than to help save his own life. His psychological need outweighed his instinctual motivation to stay alive.

Instinctual motivation was a predominant component in this movie. Upon waking up on the island Chuck looks to satiate his thirst and hunger. Even though he is exhausted, hungry, and dehydrated he exerts an enormous amount of energy to crack open a coconut and drink the juice. He also drinks water that is mixed with mud and sand in order to quench his thirst. Chuck is also very hungry. Yet, after he fashions a spear and kills a crab he is motivated to make a fire to cook the crab. His hunger is not motivating enough to eat raw meat. Upon successfully getting something to drink, eat, and a fire made Chuck's brain released dopamine and other neurotransmitters to reward Chuck for satisfying these primal needs. One of the first things we see Chuck doing is sitting underneath the raft that has been fashioned into a lean-to. Shelter was one of the first things that Chuck was motivated to find, even before food and water. Chuck was not taught to find shelter, food, and water upon being stranded on a deserted island. These physiological and safety needs are intrinsic and instinctual. They are the motivations that drove Chuck upon arriving on the island.

A behavior I found interesting was when Chuck buried the pilot. Chuck did not even know this man's name yet he was motivated to exert a significant amount of energy to dig a whole, drag the body, and then bury the man. Our cultural customs motivated Chuck to give the pilot a "proper burial". This would work along the lines of social needs. Chuck's social needs are also prevalent in his relationship with Wilson. Humans have the need to be social and to affiliate with someone or something. Wilson not only gives Chuck a companion to talk to but also to bounce ideas off of and even fight with. At multiple points in the movie Chuck is talking "to" Wilson about the best way to leave the island. Obviously Wilson cannot talk back, but he gives Chuck the affirmation he needs to continue his plans.

Another major motivation prevalent throughout this story is the motivation to stay alive. From the very beginning Chuck is motivated by some internal force to keep himself alive. He is then motivated to get off the island. Even after his failed attempts to start a fire, catch fish, and leave the island he continues to try. Chuck is so motivated to stay alive that he lives on the island for four years! After four years of being alone on a deserted island something is still motivating him to eat and drink. Later we learn that he tried to hang himself. Yet he admits that in that moment he was filled with the sensation to stay alive. His mind released neurotransmitters to motivate him to stay alive, even though there was no hope of leaving. While one can argue that Chuck was motivated by his girlfriend and the unopened FedEx package, there is a deeper, instinctual motivation to stay alive. This could be explained through an evolutionary standpoint. Chuck was instinctively motivated to stay alive in order to pass along his genes, though not consciously aware of it.

Terms: Instinctual motivation, evolutionary standpoint, intrinsic motivation, neurotransmitters, social needs, psychological needs, physiological needs, dopamine, primal needs, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, motivated

The movie “Cast Away” just to mention is probably by far one of my favorite movies especially when Tom Hanks, playing Chuck, creates a friend out of a volleyball. This is just an example of many different types of motivation or a lack of motivations in the movie. Tom's behavior, environment, instincts, biological factors, and so on all play a role in driving Tom's internal and external motivational experiences.

Right off the bat the movie begins with a package being delivered to the place that Tom was currently working at in another country to try and help the FedEx branch to improve its package delivering system. The intensity that Tom was displaying really shows how he has high behavioral engagement towards the task at hand. Also not just the beginning of the movie this type of behavior that was being expressed was present through out all the movie, but the best scene to notice this type of behavior was when he was building the raft to leave the island.

The main thing in this movie that really played a role in what drove Tom's motivation was the environment that he was trapped in which was an external motivation and also the biological factor's he would experience the internal motivations. The environment was something unlike Tom had ever known about since it was an uninhabited island that was surround in every direction by water. Since Tom was so use to a life of having large quantities of food he did not have to expend much energy to obtain this food as well, but when he was stuck on the island for four years it was an entirely different story. The only food and fluids Tom could really only get at first was from coconuts, and he wholeheartedly tried to open the coconuts by throwing them at a large rock, bashing them on a rock, or even crushing them but it did not work until a rock broke making some sort of hacking tool which he used to finally opened the coconut. This new environment Tom was stuck in required him to adapt by going back to a more primitive state on how he was to obtain resources.

When Tom was frantically trying to get the coconuts open that was a sign of the biological factors in his body that were making his physiological needs become more noticeable which created a drive for him to get some fluids. When Tom got to the fluid inside the coconuts giving him negative feedback after obtaining that water which then put him in a satiety state for thirst. When Tom was in a homeostatic state for thirst another drive became present which was food. Just like with the water Tom tried hard to get some. He first put his focus on getting fish, but with no success so he then tried getting a crab. When Tom got the crab and tried eating it a slimy goo came out which he thought it would be like a cooked crab at first, and this made Tom want to make fire to cook crab which is another sign of his adaptation to his environment. When Tom was able to make to fire, and when he was able to cook the crab he was also put in a homeostatic state towards food.

Another way that Tom was driven by motivation was also from his brain and the hormones in his body. When Tom learned how to open coconuts, make fire, and eat food these were all rewards for all the hard work which made the dopamine levels in his body rise making him happy. High cortisol levels were also present the entire time he was on the island because it was an entirely new environment which he was not use to, he had to learn how to hunt and gather, and just trying to keep his health up were all big stress factors.

Terms: behavior, environment, instincts, behavioral engagement, motivation, internal & external motivations, adaptation, drive, physiological needs, negative feedback, satiety, dopamine, and cortisol

In Chapter 1 we learned about many different themes in the study of motivation. One in particular that is apparent in this movie is that motives vary over time and influence the ongoing stream of behavior. The definition of a motive is an internal disposition to approach positive incentives and avoid negative ones. There were many examples in the film of how motives affect behavior. In the beginning of the film Tom Hanks’ character, Chuck Noland, is motivated by the psychological discomfort he has from the felt tension of his job to deliver packages on time at Christmas. This motive moves him into the action of getting on the plane and leaving his girlfriend/fiancé during the holidays. At this point in his life he obviously sees this as his biggest motive, more than any motive to spend time with Kelly, his girlfriend/fiancé. What is interesting though is that when he is stranded on the island she is the motive that keeps him alive and gives him hope. Though we see that at one point he had lost motive to continue his actions for survival when the scene is shown regarding his consideration of suicide. His comments later in the film are about how at that point on the island he knew somehow he had to stay alive even with no hope and believing he would never see home again. Then the tide came in, providing him with what he used for a sail, igniting the motivation to try and get off the island. Then at the end of the film, when he realizes he has lost Kelly, his experience on the island is his motive to keep moving forward in life, having survived so miraculously.

When Chuck initially wakes up on the island he has no motives to take any action required for a lengthy stay on the island. In his mind he initially believes he will quickly be rescued. He sticks to one spot on the island, calls out for help, and protects the Fed Ex boxes that have floated to shore. As he finally realizes he is going to be there awhile he begins to explore the island more as his physiological needs kick in, finally decides he needs to figure out how to start a fire, and breaks down and opens the FedEx packages to see if they could be of any use.

In Chapter 4 we learned about how physiological needs, specifically thirst and hunger, affect motives and behavior. The film demonstrates this concept a lot while Chuck is on the island. When his physiological need for water first begins to take over we see he is very persistent when trying to open coconuts, eventually learning to use the sharp edge of the rock to break it open. He is also shown looking for water in leaves after a storm, and begins to find puddles that have collected water. Since our bodies can survive longer without food than water this motive affects his behavior first. Then we see him begin to try and find food, eating a raw minnow and crab guts. Eventually he realizes he must learn to start a fire so he can cook and he is overcome with positive emotions when he finally gets it. We see how his physiological need for food has motivated him to increase his ability to start a fire to cook food for survival. When the film jumps ahead to four years later he is shown easily spearing fish, and then as he prepares to leave the island he is filling coconuts with water and corking them. His survival skills have greatly increased due to his physiological needs.

In Chapter 3 we learned about the different motivational and emotion states associated with specific brain structures. The film shows Chuck doing math when trying to figure out where he is and when calculating when to leave the island to avoid high tides. The part of his brain he is using in making these plans and formulating intentions are the frontal lobes of his cerebral cortex, an approach-oriented brain structure. When he is experiencing motivation to fulfill his physiological needs the amygdala regulates those emotions involved in self-preservation, an avoidance-oriented brain structure. I also believe he is using an avoidance technique when talking to ‘Wilson’ as if he is a person. He does not want to deal with the fear and anxiety of being alone. Chuck experiences a lot of emotion when he does finally leave the island, and even more when he loses ‘Wilson’ in the sea.

Approach-oriented, avoidance-oriented, amygdala, physiological needs, cerebral cortex, brain structures, thirst, hunger, motives, psychological discomfort, internal disposition

”Cast Away”: Examples of Motivation
This movie had many great examples of motivation. Mostly all of the examples surrounded the main character, Chuck Noland. Throughout the movie, Chuck demonstrated how internal motives, sources of motivation, hormones, and physiological needs drove him to behave in certain ways and possibly helped him in surviving those four years on the island.

Motives are those internal processes that energize and direct behaviors. In Cast Away, one could say that Chuck was largely motivated by these internal motives. His needs, cognitions and emotions greatly influenced his actions on the island. Needs, such as the need for food and water, are those conditions that are necessary and essential for life and well-being, something Chuck desperately needed in order to survive on the island. There were also times where Chuck’s expectations, his cognitions, motivated him to attempt tasks that were virtually impossible, like his first attempt to paddle his raft over the waves. He believed he could make it, but due to the conditions of the ocean and the raft he was unable to do so. Finally, Chuck’s emotions played a huge part in keeping his sanity on the island.

Several sources of motivation could be perceived in Tom Hanks’ character Chuck. First, there were some external regulation factors that forced Chuck to behave in a certain way. For example, when Chuck was contemplating suicide he was doing so because his situation on the island had become so desolate. He figured there was no other way off the island but to kill himself. However, after testing the log and realizing that the option wouldn’t get him off the island, he decided to take personal control of his situation. He decided that he would wait out his time on the island until the right moment came in which he could escape. Another external regulation came in the form of Kelly. Although Kelly was not physically with him on the island, the idea and thought of her waiting for him to come home motivated Chuck to continue surviving. Finally, my favorite example of a source of motivation came in the scene in which Chuck was able to finally light a fire. Satisfied that he was able to start the fire on his own after several hours of work, Chuck’s perceived competence greatly rose with his accomplishment. This most likely gave him the sense that if he could create fire, he could take on any other element the island decided to throw at him.

From a more biological standpoint, both hormones and other physiological factors played a part in motivating Chuck during his time on the island. The hormones cortisol and oxytocin were most likely coursing through Chuck during certain scenes. Cortisol is the body’s “stress hormone.” Thus, it is highly likely that cortisol was flowing through Chuck during the plane crash as well as his first days of frustration on the island. Oxytocin is the body’s “bonding hormone.” My guess would be that Chuck’s oxytocin levels were high when he first began talking to Wilson, the volleyball. This could explain why Chuck chose to confide in and seek counsel with this inanimate object during times of stress. Finally, the physiological needs of thirst and hunger were a common theme throughout the movie. One can see Chuck furiously hacking away at coconuts and eating raw fish just to satisfy his thirst and hunger, things that are absolutely crucial for a person’s survival.

Terms: internal motives, external regulations, personal control, perceived competence, cortisol, oxytocin, physiological needs

When watching the movie cast away, there are many motivational principles that arise. The first principle that comes up is from chapter 4. This movie relates very much to chapter four and the physiological motivation factors. Physiological needs describe a deficient biological condition. These needs occur with tissue in the blood stream from water loss, nutrient deprivation or injury. This is displayed in the movie in different scenes. When Chuck first got to the island, he did not have any source for food or water. He was started to get depleted of these essential necessities for life. Chuck became so motivated that he started drinking coconut milk. He found the coconut and started to desperately try and get it open. He started by throwing it up against a large rock, and then would try to smash it. He would eat the inside of the coconut also. Chuck started to water that had accumulated in the leaves, and pour it into empty coconuts so he would have it for later. The hunger was also a huge motivational factor for Chuck. He needed to eat because his need was depleting. He tried to fish, although at first it was not successful. He then started catching crabs for nutrition and survive.
Drive was a motivation concept that was important in Chucks survival. Freud’s drive theory is a good example of drive that fits into Chuck’s experience. Freud believed that behavior was motivated to serve satisfaction needs. The source of this drive was rooted into the body and when it was depleted it would create anxiety for the individual. It could threaten physical and psychological health. The body needs to stay balanced to reduce anxiety. Hull’s drive theory along with Freud’s explains Chucks motivation. The two together explain the physiological aspect to fufill the bodies needs. Hulls theory explained ‘Drive is an energizer, not guide. This would explain when Chuck would try and fail for food and water. If he failed, his need would make him not give up and starve to death. Chuck also had his ‘instincts’ step up. All that is needed to translate an instinct into goal directed behavior is the presence of an appropriate stimuli. This explains when Chuck builds his shelter from the storm, when he keeps the water because he knows he will need it t survive. Along with instinct, comes adaptation. This was a critical issue for Chuck when surviving on the island. He was there for four years. He adapted to the environment. In the beginning when he was first stranded, it took him a long time to create fire. He failed and tried multiple times. By the 4 years he was able to create fire very easily, and have more than one at a time. He also adapted to becoming a skilled hunter. He was unable to catch a fish at first, but was able to spear a fish in only one try.
Another need that hasn’t been mention is the social needs. Chuck is alone on the island with no interaction at all. He creates a companion in a volley ball that was part of the fed ex shipment. This is a very important role in Chuck’s life. He names the volleyball Wilson. Chuck becomes extremely attached to Wilson. He created the role of Wilson to fulfill his social needs and to keep his sanity. Having Wilson was a huge motivational factor to keep him going. Wilson was lost at the end of the movie and it’s a very powerful scene where you can feel the despair of losing his only companion.
Needs, Drive, drive theory, depleted, instincts, adaptation, social needs, Physiological needs

The first event in the movie I would like to focus on is Clark’s toothache. In the very beginning he mentions that he need to go to the dentist before the plane even crashes on the island. Once he gets to the island the ache becomes a more significant pain. The prolonged neglect of it then makes him have a drive to do something to try and ease the pain. For some time he uses coconut to help soothe it. Though his drive becomes much greater when he is bleeding from the tooth and infection presumably take over. The need becomes so intense that it leads to a goal-directed motivated behavior – removing the tooth (quite primitively) with tools he has shaped on the island. Though the pain of removing his tooth knocked him unconscious, it did reduce his drive and return him to a satiated state.

The second event in the movie I wanted to address was his physiological need to satisfy thirst and hunger. One of the first things he does when he gets to the island is try to get milk from a coconut. He gathers a bunch. He begins by throwing them against a rock wall with no success. Becoming more frustrated, he then starts banging the coconut against the wall. Then he tries smashing it on a rock, only to break a piece of rock off while bashing the coconut against it. The moment it happens you can tell he is frustrated and astounded with how difficult it is to get the milk out. With the broken piece of rock he then starts to cut the outside of the coconut off to get to the core. Finally, he gets it cracked open. Though disappointment sets in quickly as almost no milk is gained from the whole process. His search for water continues, he finds it gathered on a leaf. He then realizes that he can collect water from the leaves and store them in the coconuts, like water bottles.

His hunger is a bit harder. After his opens his FedEx packages he has some materials to assist him in hunting food. He makes a net and spear. Though his beginnings in hunting led to small sardine like fish and crab slop. We do find that he masters fishing with a spear and can catch quite good fish by the time he has spent 4 years on the island.

The final event to cover is Wilson, the volleyball man. Wilson’s creation comes from Clark’s frustration to make fire. Clark cuts his hand in attempt to make fire, frustrated and agitated he has a fit. During his fit he kicks and screams, even throws things – one of which is Wilson. Clark picks up the volleyball and draws a face on him. Then he sets him in a stump, showing great care. While attempting to make fire, he looks up at the ball as if it is really staring at him whilst he works. He then starts talking to the ball. He has conversations with Wilson. Wilson actively participates in conversation with him He looks at Wilson when he speaks to him. Before they depart from the island, it looks as though a body had been crafted for his head to rest on. When Wilson goes overboard and he cannot save him, Clark cries out apologies to him. Clark reacts to Wilson’s “death” as he would a close family member. Wilson becomes more and more important as the film goes on. Wilson clearly serves a purpose to Clark, what seems to be social need. He relates to Wilson, after all he is in the same situation as Clark. Clark’s drive for social contact became so great that he made himself a friend. Wilson gave him a sense of intimate friendship; he became completely real to Clark – you can see this through the engagement towards activity with Wilson

Terms: Physiological need, social need, drive, goal-directed motivated behavior, engagement

The movie Cast Away captures the main points from Chapter 1-4 in the text. Chuck Nolan faces motivational and emotional states throughout the entirety of this show. Much of what Chuck yearned for on the island was the same as what he yearned for off the island, power and control. Those two states were motivation enough for Nolan to be successful at his job, but also to survive on the island. Much of what Chuck initiated on the island was goal-directed behavior, meaning he completed a task in order for a goal to be obtained. No energy exerted was wasted. The drive to consume energy and maximize productivity was a part of what finally got him off the island.

Chuck went through two phases throughout this movie, physiological needs and psychological needs. He first attempted to fulfill his physiological needs. Thirst and hunger struck him and he went through desperation attempting to fill these needs. Chuck’s cells were dehydrated so he drank dirty rain water, filled with nematodes and bacteria (goal-directed behavior). He also mastered, with drive, conquering hunger. Chuck taught himself how to fish with a spear and create fire, of which a sense of achievement was attained. His ghrelin secretion must have been low toward the end of his time on the island, subduing hunger sensations. These are all examples of Nolan fulfilling his physiological needs in order to survive. As time passed on the island, Chuck needed to also fulfill his psychological needs. Humans have a motivational instinct to socialize. Chuck fulfills this psychological need by creating “Wilson”. This gives him an outlet for his thoughts and emotions. Chuck may be yearning for conversation or intimacy, like he did with his girlfriend. His arguments with “Wilson” may be an outward emotion from his lack of power. Chuck not only argues with the volleyball, but in order to have a sense of power and control he wins the arguments.

I enjoyed the end of the movie, when Chuck returns, and there is a bounty of seafood for Chuck to eat. His face looked of disgust as he perused his fingers through the food he once worked so hard to eat. When he picked up the giant crab leg with the thickest crab meat, he dropped it in disgust. I too would be thinking—where was this a couple of days ago? Although, the drive to survive the island would not have been as great with the bounty of food.

Drive was a key motivational state which played a large role in Chuck’s time on the island. Drive is a state of instinctual-internal motivation. Our ancestors had drive to survive and now it is in our DNA due to natural selection. Chuck found he was losing control over his life and external stimuli were taking over what he did. Chuck lost desire to live and made a noose to hang himself. Upon testing the noose, he found he had no control even over how he died. This was when drive consumed Chuck and the desire to survive increased.

Terms: power and control, goal-directed behavior, physiological needs, psychological needs, Thirst, hunger, needs, achievement, ghrelin, motivational instinct, Drive, instinctual-internal motivation, desire.

Since this class has begun, I am finding myself looking for the underlying motives in everything that occurs around me. This movie is no exception. Since this movie is clearly about the strive for survival, the connections run deep-- regardless of whether the viewer is primed to seek symbols of "motivation and emotion".
The first thing I noticed is how driven chuck is in his daily routine-- he is an ambition person overall, who is career-driven, conscientious, and punctual. Seeing his motivation to succeed in his career and personal lives sets the stage for the disaster that soon unfolds. As soon as circumstances change, the direction of his motivation shifts drastically. I immediately thought about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Because his basic needs for shelter, food, and water were unmet, thought like "these packages need to be delivered!" and "I'm going to miss my dentist appointment" are nullified. Frued's drive theory is now introduced: we have a drive so that we will act to satisfy these needs.
The realization that "he is doomed" doesn't immediately sink in. The first few days he is on the island, he collects the packages, but doesn't open them. This is because he *values* being a part of a reliable delivery service. But he eventually wavers and opens the packages because his most primal needs are not being met.
At the same time, he *does* set one package aside to be later delivered. This was most likely done for artistic reasons and to carry along the plot, however, this fact can also be connected to motivation. Perhaps Chuck did this because he needed to set a goal for himself. He couldn't bear the idea of not having a concrete goal, and so he made one for himself, even though the contents of the package may have been of use to his survival.
Another example of the directional change of his motivation has to do with his toothache. At the beginning of the film, he had made an appointment to see the dentist. Of course he wouldn't knock out his tooth with an ice skate when he was in civilization and just a few days from seeing a dentist. However, the pain was becoming greater and greater and there came a point where waiting was not worth it anymore. This period of latency was set off at the point where he could not deal with an alternative. He made a choice: he would make an effort to relieve himself of the pain through drastic measures because this would return him to a state of satiation.
Chuck's physiological preparedness was activated by his amygdala, which caused his "fight or flight" response. At this point, Chuck is tuned in only to his needs- what's at the very bottom of the Maslow's pyramid. It is Chuck's drive that keeps him motivated toward meeting his deficiency-based needs. He sets out to find food and water, and when he realizes that it's becoming increasingly more difficult, he is motivated to develop skills to help him survive- he learns how to make fire, how to catch fish, etc. It's very obvious to the viewer that Chuck's standards are lowering: he will eat or drink pretty much anything to keep him alive. The book lists three reasons for drinking: water replenishment, taste, and addiction to a substance. It's clear that Chuck is so deprived that he is only looking to satisfy his physiological need for water and nutrient replenishment.
One interesting thing about Chuck's circumstances is how there are minimal extraorganismic mechanisms pertaining to his motivation, since he is effectively stranded. It's interesting to see how he *creates* them for himself, to give him motivation to survive: the goal of delivering a package, returning to his girlfriend, and how he even "creates" a friend.

Terms: Motivation, drive, needs, Maslow, Hierarchy of needs, goal, latency, Frued's drive theory, attention, choice, effort, satiation, physiological preparedness, amygdala, fight or flight, deficiency-based needs, water replenishment, extraorganismic mechanisms

The movie Cast Away demonstrates many key topics examined in chapters 1 through 4 in the text book. Immediately after the crash, when the main character, Chuck, arrived on the island, his physiological needs, namely thirst and hunger, were not at the top of his list. He first concentrated on writing in the sand in attempt to get help, and using the lifeboat to escape. He then concentrates still on more comfort things like picking up all of the FedEx packages. Shortly, his physiological needs take control and thirst and hunger become his priority. After he finally figures out how to meet those needs, he begins finding ways to meet his other needs.
All three types of needs were expressed and in some way met throughout Chuck’s time on the island. The most obvious type of needs Chuck experienced was his physiological needs. When there was a deprivation of food and water, he experienced hunger and thirst. Both of which are regulated largely by the hypothalamus. When Chuck had not had water for an extended period of time, he was motivated by biological deficits within his body, homeostasis, and negative feedback to find something to drink. According to Hull’s theory of Drive, this biological imbalance gave Chuck the motivation to get up and poke holes in coconuts or lick rainwater off of a leaf. This is an external event (lack of water) which led Chuck to approach behaviors (actively searching out water.)
In the beginning of Chuck’s time on the island, there is a scene where he is trying miserably to catch a fish. The task proves very difficult and he quickly gives up. Moments later, in seeing a crab, he stabs it, breaks it open, but finds the contents too disgusting to consume. This begs the question, how hungry does one have to be to eat a raw crab or fish? Initially, hunger is not a huge need, and so Chuck is able to survive eating only coconuts. As the deprivation of food continues, Chuck’s adipose tissue releases leptin, a hormone that causes the feeling of hunger, into his bloodstream in response to the lack of calories coming in. Shortly, as his body is flooded with hunger hormones, hunger becomes a more important need, and he gets to the point where he puts a raw fish in his mouth and eats it. Something has changed in his orbitofrontal cortex where decision making takes place.
Another type of need Chuck had was social needs. As the plane was crashing, his need for intimacy is at the front of his mind. Chuck gets out of his seat belt to retrieve the locket given to him by his significant other. He holds onto that locket throughout the movie, and as he is leaving the island, he leaves a message for anyone who might find it, to tell her he loves her. Chuck’s need for companionship and belonging is met by his relationship with Wilson, a bloody volleyball. Although it makes him look a little crazy from the outside, he is meeting his need by talking to, taking care of, and keeping the safety of this volleyball. When he loses Wilson to the ocean, it is clear that he is emotionally attached, and he feels like he lost a real person, a best friend.
Psychological needs are also seen throughout the movie. Chucks need for feeling safe is clearly not being met at the beginning. He eventually finds his way to a cave which becomes his shelter and creates for himself a routine and a life that leads to the idea at least that he is safe. Psychological needs are also shown in the scene where Chuck finds a dead body from the plane crash in the ocean. After getting supplies from the body to help meet his physical needs, Chuck buries the body and creates a gravestone for the deceased. This fulfills his need for closure and helps him move on from the gruesome reality he has entered.

ME terms: Physiological needs, hunger, thirst, hypothalamus, homeostasis, negative feedback, external events, approach behaviors, Hull’s Theory of Drive, social needs, orbitofrontal cortex, psychological needs

“Cast Away” features many scenarios that are related to chapters 1-4. In the first minutes of the movie you see an example of extrinsic motivation. The movie starts off with a FedEx van driving around a city in Russia delivering packages to people. Then the FedEx guy gets off the van and steps into a house with a group of people. He starts talking to a lady and then he gives a package to the lady. The lady hands the package to a young boy. The young boy starts sprinting to deliver a package to Chuck. When the young boy reaches his destination and successfully delivers the package to Chuck. Chuck thanks the boy and rewards the young boy with a chocolate bar and a CD player. The child was motivated with rewards.

I believe that “Cast Away” shows powerful examples of the grand theories: instinct, drive, and physiological needs. External events are environment, social, and cultural sources of motivation that have the capacity to energize and direct behavior. When Chuck crash lands on a deserted island this is an example of an external event. The psychological needs, thirst, is explained when Chuck hear some noises off in the distance. He soon finds out that coconuts are the cause of the noise. Chuck has been deprived of water for a long period of time. Chuck knows without water replenishment, he would soon decease so he tries over and over again to open the coconuts to quench his need for a drink. The mouth, stomach, and cells coordinate thirst activation and satiety, but so do the kidneys, hypothalamus, and specific hormones.

The grand theories, will, instinct and drive, are demonstrated when Chuck realizes that he might be on the stranded on the island a long time. Chuck has the will to survive. The memories and good times that he shared with his family provide motives to stay alive. The instinct is another essential element in this movie. Living on the island forced Chuck to uses his primal instinct. In the beginning Chuck tries to catch a feed, but fails. Later on in the movie, we see Chuck catch a fish with a spear with ease. This is a great example of instinct. The particular drive for food, water, sleep, and shelter forced Chuck to acquire abilities essential to survival. He builds a bonfire to provide him with heat and a means of cooking his food. He builds a shelter to protect him from environmental factors. Hunger and thirst are examples of physiological needs that are present in the movie.

I think that the need for companionship should be a physiological need. A person needs someone on to talk to in order to keep you sanity. Even if that “person” was a volleyball named Wilson. It seems like the relationship that Chuck creates with Wilson help him deal with a lot of his problem and help bounce his ideas off something to decide of to make it off the island. The journey off the island was really intense. Chuck beginning to gather material and tries to build a boat so he can depart off the island. He has a conversation with Wilson about leaving because he tired of staying there and would rather take his chances on the ocean rather than staying and dying on the island. Extraorganismic mechanisms include all the environmental influences that play a part in activating, maintaining, and terminating psychological drive. The island was the environmental influence that active Chuck’s psychological drives. “Cast Away” is a great film that correlates to the material we have been learning throughout the week. The movie also portraits reality because being stranded on a deserted island is plausible.

TERMS: extrinsic motivation, grand theories, instinct, drive, will, physiological needs, external events, hypothalamus, Extraorganismic mechanisms, Hunger, Thirst

Cast Away had a lot of motivation throughout the entire movie. In the beginning, he’s trying to get his workers motivated so they can be more productive. Throughout the movie, you see a psychological need of hunger, thirst, and also social need of affiliation. He does whatever he can by his internal drives to be able to survive. Survival is his number one goal.
When Tom Hanks gets washed up on the shore of a completely deserted island, right away he collects the FedEx packages that have washed up on shore as well and keeps them all together. He is extremely motivated to get those packages to their recipients. His instinct for survival also tells him to write HELP in the sand so that planes would be able to see. His dismay when he wakes up and sees that it has been washed away by the waves motivated him to use logs and sticks to write it further up on the island where it will be untouched.
He knew that in order to survive on the island he would have to find shelter, water, and food. He initially used the life boat he was given as his shelter but when that wasn’t enough he started to walk around the island in hopes of either finding someone else washed up or finding a better shelter. He ends up finding a little cave in the walls of island that he makes his home throughout the movie.
Freud’s Drive Theory can explain why he so desperately was looking for food to satiate his hunger. The drive source told him that there was a deficit which resulted in hunger. The drivers object wants to satiate his hunger and also get rid of the anxiety that is associated with it. At first, he tries to hunt for fish just using a semi-sharpened stick. He obviously fails miserably, resulting in this said anxiety. He knows that he must come up with something better if he wants to survive, so he creates a net out of some of the contents of the packages he found. He used that to catch his first crab and fish, which satisfies his hunger.
After the first day on the island without any water to drink, it becomes ever pressing to him that he has a physiological need for thirst. When he spots a coconut fall out of the tree beside him, he tries everything in his power to break open this coconut. He exerts a large amount of energy dedicated to getting it open. When he breaks it open the first time, it breaks in half so that he cannot get any water out of it. He then has to improvise in order to satiate his thirst. Although there is not much water inside the coconut, when he’s able to drink it, it calms his anxiety a little more.
The social need of affiliation was also an ever pressing matter. He was likely to go crazy without any social interaction. His motivation to stay alive and see his girlfriend drove him into creating a volleyball into his best friend for four years, Wilson. Wilson fulfilled his need of affiliation for those four years on the island by being there for him. When Wilson is lost to sea at the end of the movie, it is evident how heartbroken he is about losing his best friend.
Terms: physiological needs, thirst, hunger, social need of affiliation, Frued’s drive theory, instinct, drivers object, drivers source, satiate

Motivation and Emotion post #7
The movie Cast Away starring Tom Hanks as Chuck Nolan can be directly linked to most of the text in our course textbook. There are many principles demonstrated in this movie that is relatable to psychology and more specifically motivation and emotion. First I would like to talk about the biological aspect of this movie found. When the plane starts to go down we can see that Nolan’s breathing has increased and his heart rate seems to increase. This is due to the stimulation of his amygdala and lateral hypothalamus from a potential life threatening situation as his body prepares to react with in a moment’s notice to protect himself from potential harm and danger. Once the plane has crashed into the water you will be able to see fear on Nolan’s face as the plane starts to fill up with water. Nolan gasps for air at the top of the plan until the hull of the plane ruptures. As his hypoxic drive kicks in, he is then motivated to one of the bodies basic biological needs; oxygen. He scrambles to open the life raft which he has determined to be the quickest way to the surface to fulfill this very basic biological need.
When Nolan first arrives on the island he first shouts to gain companionship with other humans, but to no avail. Nolan would be trying to fulfill a social need as he tries to gain contact with another person. Despite the biological part of psychology this movie at this point can be analyzed utilizing needs and the drive theory. For further analysis I point to fourth chapter in our text which is Physiological needs. As Nolan searches the island for supplies and builds a makeshift shelter, he is utilizes calories and water he had previously ingested. This causes him to gradually become increasingly both hungry and thirsty as his physiology becomes deprived of resources. This causes Nolan to try and satiate his thirst first, most likely due to his increased body temperature as he begins to sweat trying to lower his body’s temperature. After much frustration he is able to open a coconut so he is able to consume its milk to try and alleviate his thirst. Once his brain receives negative feedback his brain tells his body to stop drinking, his thirst is then satiated or overpowered by another drive.
Now he decides to find a source of food. He makes tools in order to fish, however he seems to lack the ability to fish with that tool. Nolan then finds crab in which he kills and tries to eat. When he discovers crab meat is not very good raw he decides he must build fire to cook his new food source. This motivates him try and build a fire, utilizing friction. His body continues to work to try and satiate his hunger. After failing to make fire for several hours he becomes injured. Nolan then experiences anger and throws items. After he has tended to his injury he then draws a face on a volleyball found in a package. This was quite important for Nolan as the volleyball, he names Wilson, as this fulfills a previous need that was not met; a social need. While talking to Wilson, Nolan starts a fire which might create a sense of relatedness and affiliation. Due to him seeing and feeling the warmth of fire at night this releases dopamine in his brain. Nolan experiences great pleasure as he demonstrates another need; although a Psychological need; Need for competency. As he feels happy to have created fire and is now able to cook crab and consume it for caloric and glycolic intake. This satiates his hunger and starts the drive cycle anew.
ME terms: stimulation, amygdala, lateral hypothalamus, motivated, social need , needs, drive theory, Physiological needs, satiate, thirst, motivates, relatedness, affiliation., Psychological need, Need for competency, caloric, glycolic, hunger, drive cycle.

With watching Cast Away, you see many different concepts of motivation and emotion. Chuck (Tom Hanks) is very motivated at successfully doing his job at Fed Ex and when he crashes onto the island his inner motivation comes into play for survival. You see the physiological needs that come into play with Hull’s Model of Need-Drive-Behavior Sequence as Chuck fights the needs of thirst and hunger.

There are many motivational needs throughout the movie as Chuck’s need for thirst and hunger are triggered due to lack of intake of food, nutrients and water. He learned how to open coconuts after not being able to the first time. He was driven to learn how to correctly crack a coconut and crack it to obtain the coconut juice as a means for food/drink. He also is motivated to build some sort of shelter to give him that feeling of safety and to keep him out of harm. He is also motivated to build a fire to keep him warm. The brain has an increase in hormones which drove his motivation. Creating the volleyball as a “person” to talk to is a motivator for the need for socialization and social support.

Chuck has experienced a “fight or flight” response after the crash which has put him into survival mode and he does anything necessary to keep “sane” and overall, survive on this island. He was motivated to stay alive in hopes that someone would come and find him. He overcame the stresses and continued his motivation to survive and was rewarded when he heard the plane.

Cast Away is a movie that relates very well to motivational principles. Tom Hanks provides us with an excellent microcosm into both the physiological and social needs, as well as drive. As soon as the plane crashes, Chuck experiences drive. Drive is basically our biological instinct to survive, and is shown in both physiological and social needs. He spends a day attempting to kill fish with a spear, but learns to adapt to a more proficient method. He uses his cognitions to adapt to his environment, which will increase his chances of survival.

According to the textbook, the psychological needs are summarized as one’s autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The social needs are achievement, affiliation, intimacy, and power. As the plane crashes, we are given a portrayal of human physiological needs in such a situation. Tom’s instincts and drive to survive result in him building a shelter for himself, cracking open a coconut and drinking its contents to quench his thirst, and fashioning a net to procure food. These actions satisfied his physical needs at the time. Humans universally share the instinct to survive using those types of actions.

What I found more interesting was how Tom related to the volleyball he dubbed “Wilson”. With his physical needs satisfied, Chuck, reaches a point where he needs to satisfy his psychological needs. Lonesomeness has changed his perspective on friendship. And when he sees his bloody handprint on the ball, which is symbolism for the ball becoming part of him or coming from him, the ball becomes his “friend”. He personifies the ball by marking it, and the ball serves as an outlet that would otherwise be entirely contained inside Chuck’s head. Wilson allows Chuck to stay sane and rational through expressions of intimacy and affiliation. It is partially responsible for ensuring his survival, along with his physiological needs. The affiliation is perhaps the most important way that Wilson served Chuck because he did not feel as alone as he would have.

At this point in the movie we can see some real emotion from Chuck. His emotional responses were very interesting, both when he lost Wilson and when he received the news that Kelly had remarried. The agony he showed served as a good portrayal of grief. It seems as if once our needs as humans are satisfied, then is when we can truly feel and appreciate emotions.
Terms: physiological needs; social needs; psychological needs; cognitions; affiliation; intimacy; drive

The movie Cast Away gives us a clear definition of the word need. Need: any condition within the person that is essential and necessary for life, growth, and well-being. As discussed in chapter 4, the word need can be categorized into physiological, psychological, and social. Society knows we need food, water, and shelter as basic needs to survive and Tom Hank’s character, Chuck, was faced with the challenge of finding all three of those basic physiological needs. Throughout his journey of being stuck on an abandoned island, Chuck also demonstrates Hull’s drive theory of how physiological deprivations and deficits create biological needs.

One of the first thing Hank’s character does once being thrown onto this abandoned island was seeking help by first spelling out HELP in the sand, then using trees to spell out HELP once the ocean washed the sand away. Everyone varies in their areas of social needs depending on their personal experiences and what type of social environment they were raised. If I were him I would’ve tried to look for shelter or food first before trying to signal someone because it was still light out and at that point I knew I was alone.

Chuck experienced more deficiency motivation due to being deprived of food and water. With deficiency motivation, a person experiences more tension-packed emotions such as anxiety, frustration, pain, stress, and relief. Referring back to as Chuck was trying to make fire multiple times and had no luck. With the addition of the volleyball, Wilson, he became more motivated because even though Wilson was an inanimate object, he was a companion Chuck wanted to prove something to by starting a fire. He became stressed and frustrated throughout the process, but once the fire started forming Chuck experienced relief. Chuck also experienced some growth motivation with the success of the fire showing enjoyment as yelling ‘FIRE, I made fire’. Wilson did serve as a friend/someone to talk to which to most people could be thought of as crazy, but I think Wilson kept Chuck motivated especially while Chuck was trying to find out the best time to attempt to leave the island. Chuck’s drive to get off the island is brought to the surface while he is arguing with Wilson about time being an issue. Chuck gets so frustrated he throws Wilson out of the sheltered cave and only after a few seconds does he go in search for him. It’s because of Chuck’s lack of proper food and water intake that brings out his motivation to get off the island. Although he is basically fighting with himself while yelling at Wilson, he realizes he is alone without him.

A rectangular FedEx package also fills Chuck’s psychological need of relatedness because it reminded him of his job and his home. It also becomes almost like a companion to him as he does everything in his power to keep that one package sealed and ends up delivering it in the end.

Terms: psychological need, physiological need, social need, drive theory, relatedness, deficiency motivation, growth motivation

The movie Cast Away demonstrates many of the principles we have discussed in our text. Such as physiological needs such as thirst and hunger as well as psychological needs such as social needs. Maslows theory of hierarchy of needs can also be applied to this movie.
We can see Maslows theory in upper levels of hierarchy in the beginning of the movie. As we see Chuck Noland managing a group of individuals who work at a packaging company and having dinner with his longterm girlfriend and family we are also teased with the anticipation of a possible proposal to his girlfriend. According to Maslow's theory of hierarchy Noland was achieving the upper levels of the hierarchy. Yet, this was shortly lived when Noland went on an emergency work call and boarded a plane that hit a huge storm cell. After the plane crash into the ocean and the storm passed. Noland found himself on a deserted island soon searching and scavenging for shelter, water, and food. All of which are examples of Maslows lowest level of hierarchy. Nolan was quickly motivated by his physiological needs such as thirst and hunger to search for these basic needs. Freud's Drive Theory can explain
the process Noland goes through as he attempts to make his own spear and catch his own fish. Drive’s source the first component in Freud’s drive theory was when Nolan experiences the increased anxiety and hunger pains his body is producing to motivate him (intraorganismic mechanisms) to do something more than just drink coconut juice. Driver’s Impetus occurs as Nolan mind begins to work overtime making him hear things and his anxiety increases when his homemade spear doesn't work. Drivers Aim, is achieved when Nolan realizes the spear will not work and he creates a net type object to catch fish. Driver’s Aim is achieved once he catches the fish, and is able to cook and eat what little fish he does catch, allowing him to satisfy his physiological need of hunger.
We can also see the aspect of social needs in the movie Cast Away, in a matter of weeks Nolan’s psychologically makes up a friend (Wilson) a volleyball that he accidentally hits when he is upset with a bloody hand making the ball appear to have a face. The motivation to make this character up in his head and talk to comes out of his need to be social, to have conversation and a feeling of value from a friend. This aspect shows what lengths our mind is willing to take when not all physiological regulations are met.

Terms: Physiological needs (thirst and hunger), Frued’s Drive Theory, social need of intimacy ( value), psychological need, Drive’s Source, Drivers impetus, driver’s object, drivers aim, intragenomic mechanisms.