Cast Away

In Castaway, Chuck Noland (played by Tom Hanks) is portrayed as a punctual and business-oriented person that cares mostly about his job. At the start of the movie, he often skips fundamental needs of regulation. He would rather be getting packages to where they need to be than eating, drinking, or reproducing. The three physiological needs, thirst, hunger, and sex, are mostly ignored, and they are only satisfied when needed as only one meal was shown with the family in the whole movie (and one at the end when he returns). Once Chuck gets to the island, he tries many different strategies to satisfy some of these needs. His brain sends and receives many messages from his organs, cells, and bloodstream that it needs to be regulated.
On the island, physiological needs (especially thirst and hunger) needed to be satisfied. Chuck started trying to live his own life on the island by saving packages and exploring. He soon found that his lips become chapped, his tongue dried out, and he experienced real thirst. The textbook says that once we lose around 2% of our water volume, we become thirsty and once that reaches 3% we become dehydrated. Even though the island was surrounded with water, he knew that salt water would increase the dehydration process. When it rained, Chuck would drink out of puddles on the ground. He also developed a strategy to drink coconut water by trial-and-error.
The textbook also describes how our bodies are constantly losing water through urination, breathing, bleeding, and perspiration. Although it is not as complicated as hunger, hydrating oneself is one of the most important needs to living beings. Our bodies know this as well as we do, if not better. Studies were done on animals to find out where the activation of thirst starts. It was found that rats who were allowed to drink water regularly drank much less than those that were deprived of it. The study suggests that thirst activation comes from dehydrated dying cells. The negative feedback that comes when one has drank enough water comes from many different areas: Studies show that there are negative feedback systems in the mouth, esophagus, stomach, intestines, and bloodstream. Chuck does not experience the negative feedback to signal to stop drinking because he is lacking good drinking water most of the time on the island. He continues to drink from coconuts and puddles whenever they are readily available.
An environmental factor for drinking is taste. While on the island, Chuck had no choice but to drink was he could find. He hated the taste of coconut water, and I’m sure he didn’t enjoy drinking out of dirty puddles. The script was flipped after his rescue. While on the plane back home, he asked for a soda and two cups of ice. His comment was that he missed ice so much. His body had gotten so used to the nasty water that it accepted it. The main reason he wanted water so much was due to the interaction between the hypothalamus and kidneys. The hypothalamus will send a message to the kidneys when the cells are low on water. It will tell the kidney to release the emergency supply of water. While it is doing this, the kidney will send a message back to the hypothalamus to tell the person to find water to replenish this supply. This is the action that causes the feeling of thirst.
Terms:
Fundamental Needs of Regulation
Hunger
Thirst
Sex
Environmental Factors
Physiological Needs
Hypothalamus
Kidneys
Negative Feedback

Castaway is the story that follows Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks), a man whose job entirely revolves around minimizing production problems for FedEx. While on holiday, Chuck is called in to resolve an issue at a Malaysia depot, but his plane crashes while flying through a storm. Chuck is the only survivor and washes ashore on a deserted island. There, he struggles to survive until he finally constructs himself a raft one which he, and his new best friend Wilson, escape the island. A cargo ship fortunately finds the unfortunate man, rescues him, and returns him to civilization to find his former life gone, but seems ready to have a go at a new one.

Chuck certainly is an interesting person to explore while discussing the more physiological and biological needs of our bodies. He is every city-dwelling person’s nightmare, alone on a deserted island for four years. To best summarize the points of the chapter in relation to the film however, travelling in chronological order would be best. Doing this best shows how Chuck’s civilized and cognitive-controlled brain struggles against regressing back into it’s more natural physiological urge-controlled state in the face of this beautiful yet hellish paradise.

To reference Chapter 3, first off, Chuck’s motivation as an overall theme is simple. While there is a more short-term motivation for surviving the plane crash and not drowning in the ocean, the motivation displayed throughout the film begins with him landing on the island. The environmental trigger is him realizing that he is stuck on the island alone. This likely triggered a biochemical release of cortisol, activating his brain into it’s fight-or-flight state. Panicked, he aroused the motivation of “flight” in this case, and this manifested in the conscious goal of escaping the island.

However, adding to this understanding of his motivations, Chuck’s needs also played an intervening role in this scenario. He begins on the island as a fully consciously-regulated man. While conscious regulation is discussed in the chapter more in terms of hunger regulation, Chuck is a civilized man in an uncivilized land. His brain is not adapted to this fully, so his civilized, consciously-controlled mind is fighting against his more primal urges (physiologically-controlled). Chuck essentially moved backwards from how the book describes this control of the mind. He had to liven his responsiveness to his internal cues and had to bring back more unconscious, physiological controls to survive.

This is a great struggle for Chuck, as his conscious mind really does fight against these urges early on. Upon washing on shore, he immediately tries to find ways off the island before securing food or water first. This shows that in this instance, his conscious need for civilization and home was stronger (no matter how briefly) than that of physiological needs like food and water. This is also demonstrated in his burying of the pilot’s body. If he were truly biologically focused and searching for ways to have a steady supply of food and water, he would have left the body on the beach for scavengers to pick at. However, he took the time and (more importantly) the energy to bury the body of the pilot to cling to some semblance of civilization and show his conscious mind still trying to maintain control.

However, the drive for food and water can overthrow even the most clear-thinking minds. The best way to discuss Chuck’s drives are as intervening variables. The most specific focus should be on the coconut scene. Chuck is searching through the various packages of FedEx washed up on shore when he hears a sound from off-screen. This sound is the antecedent leading to the drive to find out the source of the sound. The behavioral consequence of this antecedent is Chuck leaving the packages to move closer to the source of the sound to investigate. A coconut falls right next to him and this serves as the antecedent for the drive of hunger and thirst. Chuck’s following behavior is to open the coconut and to satiate the drive for hunger and thirst.

This scene also displays how the intensity of drives can influence behavior. Chuck chose to spend time throwing coconuts at boulders and beating them on rocks instead of opening FedEx packages because the drive for doing so was stronger. Instead of finding random, civilized knick-knacks in the easily opened boxes, Chuck focused on repeatedly beating open coconuts to get the water and food within.

Finally, I’d like to focus on Chuck’s status in terms of his homeostatic mechanism. In the coconut scene for example, Chuck’s internal state is imbalanced. His stomach (bodily organ) is the intraorganismic mechanism that signals his brain that he is hungry. The addition of the extraorganismic mechanism of falling coconuts acts as the final catalyst to make the physiological need activate the drive to motivate his behavior of opening the coconut. After successfully opening the first coconut, Chuck acquires the inputs of water and food, which raises his internal state. After multiple coconuts, the higher internal state will cause negative feedback from his mouth and stomach to cease the drive and cease the eating/drinking behavior.

Terms Used:
Drive – Pg. 29
The Motivated Brain – Pg. 51
Cortisol – Pg. 67
Physiological Need – Pg. 80
Negative Feedback – Pg. 81
Drive as Intervening Variable – Pg. 82
Intraorganismic Mechanism – Pg. 82
Extraorganismic Mechanism – Pg. 83
Homeostatic Mechanism – Pg. 84
Cognitive Regulation – Pg. 93

Tom Hanks, who plays Chuck Nolan, works for the federal express. He trains people and emphasizes how important delivering a package on time is. After proposing to his girlfriend, he is called away on a business trip, and is the sole survivor of a plane crash that ensues. The rest of the film follows his subsequent survival on a deserted island, his rescue, and his reunion with his now ex-fiancé.
The first motivational term I saw throughout the movie was how Chuck Nolan handled his physiological needs. Thirst, hunger, and sex are the three main needs that we have as humans. Hunger and thirst were the main concerns for Chuck as he tried to survive on the island, and the film focuses a lot on how he got access to clean water. The book states that dehydration occurs at 3% of water loss, so Chuck had to resort to drinking out of coconuts (which he hated) and muddy rain water from puddles. His brain had eventually allowed him to accept the dirtier water, because it was better than the alternative of no water. At the end of the film, we see an example of physiological regulation (or lack thereof) when he gets on a plane and orders a soda and ice chips. He is seen throughout the rest of the resolution period drinking bottles and bottles of water, although thirst activation theory says that he may not need it. Thirst activation states that when cells dehydrate we seek more water to fill up our systems. Since Chuck was not able to access clean water on the island, he tried to make up for it with an excess amount of water when he was finally back to civilization. We also got a good glimpse at the environment helping to shape motivations and needs. For example, when it rained Chuck felt the need to seek shelter, which is also a need so that he manages to survive the elements as well. Chuck did not have any access to social interaction while deserted on the island for years, so he refurbished an old volleyball in order to have some semblance of conversation. Social interaction can depend largely on our environment, such as who we choose to associate ourselves with. In Chuck’s case, his pilot didn’t make it, and so he had to find a way to fulfill his needs with what he had available to him.
The last thing that I really focused on throughout the film were intraorganismic and extraorganismic mechanisms. The intraorganismic mechanisms are things that occur within a person’s body in order to push or motivate them. This can include the brain sending signals that Chuck is hungry or thirsty, pushing him to drink the coconuts even though it was noted that he despised them. However, there were also a number of Extraorganismic mechanisms, such as weather, were factors in the public or environment, that helped motivate Chuck to do something, such as seek shelter or build a boat to leave the island in the end.

Environment
Need
Thirst
Thirst activation theory
Intraorganismic mechanism
Extraorganismic mechanism

Chuck Noland, main character in Castaway, was a man stressed about punctuality. As an employee for FedEx, Chuck was tasked with making sure that FedEx packages arrived at their destinations in a speedy manner. Little did Chuck know that this work related punctuality would become a very minimal stress to him, as he would be deserted on an island for over four years. Chuck’s stresses shifted more towards physiological needs such as the three main ones from Reeve’s, which are hunger, thirst, and sex.

These three physiological needs would gradually become more enhanced in Chuck, leading to the onset of psychological drives to satiate these needs. This sequence is in relation to Hull’s drive theory. Once the physiological needs are large enough, meaning they have deviated from homeostasis a considerable amount, then a psychological urge or drive kicks in which motivates us to seek out the cure for such an urge. For example, once the massive amounts of adrenaline and cortisol racing through Chuck’s body post-crash were brought down from their extreme levels, he felt the need to seek out something to quench his thirst. Oddly enough, some coconuts happen to fall out of trees conveniently for him. His physiological need for fluids triggered his psychological drive to open these coconuts and acquire the coconut water from within. Chuck would also eat the coconut meat, along with other things, to combat his ghrelin release due to hunger. As for sex, Chuck stuck with companionship in order to satisfy this need to the best of his ability. His companionship came in numerous forms. The two most prominent being Wilson, the bloody faced volleyball, and the locket with Kelly’s photograph in it.

During the crash, and likely to some extent throughout the entirety of Chuck’s time on the island, his fight or flight response was activated. During the plane crash and upon washing up on the island, Chuck’s pituitary gland was likely secreting a very large amount of adrenocorticotropic hormone, which is the hormone responsible for the release of adrenaline and cortisol. During the event of the plane crash, Chuck’s adrenaline levels would have skyrocketed. This would have heightened his senses and reflexes along with tapping into this body’s energy reserves. After landing on the island, adrenaline would have still been high however it is likely that cortisol became the primary hormone as he was faced with the grand task of survival. These hormones motivated Chuck to carry out behaviors associated with survival.

In relation to homeostasis and mechanisms for signaling hormonal release and psychological drives, Chuck’s body was consistently imbalanced. Upon arrival on the island, after floating at sea for an extended period of time, Chuck’s digestive system is the intraorganismic mechanism by which his urge to seek out food and water originates. When Chuck discovers the coconuts, fish, and crabs, he is motivated by these extraorganismic mechanisms to obtain the nutrients from within these food sources. His body is trying not to fail and so it sends strong signals in an attempt to avoid death. After consuming the coconuts, fish, and crab, Chuck’s body releases leptin to signal that it is satiated for now and that he can move onto providing more mental and physical energy to other tasks, such as channeling his inner artist and creating a blood stained friend by the name of Wilson.

Terms Used:
Physiological Need
Hull’s Drive Theory
Homeostasis
Cortisol
Adrenaline
Ghrelin
Leptin
Pituitary Gland
Adrenocorticotropic Hormone

Chuck (Tom Hanks) lived a life centered around business. Although very successful, he gave up many things in order to find that success. He was with a woman named Kelly whom wanted to marry him, but he was so busy, it was being put on hold. Tom was constantly putting many of his physiological needs on hold such as eating, drinking, and sex because he was so engrossed in his work. When the time came that he really needed to satisfy those needs, he was always able to due to the comfortable life that he was living. All of that changed in a hurry when his plane to Malaysia crashed and left him stranded on an island. When on the island, Chuck’s physiological needs became much harder to feed and he struggled to find homeostasis. As Tom’s time on the island began, he struggled badly with fulfilling these needs. There was a time when his body began to suffer some of the effects of dehydration. The book states that dehydration starts to occur when we lose roughly 2% of the water in our bodies and it becomes dangerous when we get to 3% lost. Chuck had to find ways to fulfill his needs for water and food, and ultimately began to get his water from rain and coconuts and his food from crabs and fish that he would spear around the island. This leads me to my second point of interest from the movie.
Chuck, being a city dweller from Memphis, had to experience some things that no person from the city could ever imagine. When he got to the island, he had to overcome his current mindset in order to survive. Initially, like most humans, his first reaction was to find a way off of the island. It never occurred to him that if he was stranded for any extended amount of time that he was going to want/need some food. His brain only cared about getting off of the island. Cortisol was likely the reason for this in my opinion. In a panicked state, his brain likely released large amounts of cortisol and sent Chuck into fight-or-flight mode. All he cared about initially was getting off of the island. Soon after, however, Chuck realized that he was not going to get off the island as he had hoped. His body soon began releasing Ghrelin and ADH which began signaling to his body that he was hungry/thirsty. ADH works as a signal through your body that tells your kidneys to conserve water from urine to try to keep the body as hydrated as possible for as long as possible. Ghrelin alerts your body that it needs food and also helps control your bodies use of energy. Once these hormones were in play in Chuck’s body, it became increasingly less important to him how he was going to get off the island and it become much more important to him how he was going to survive in the short term. Chuck was so used to being able to eat, drink, or do most anything whenever he felt the needs that his body needed these hormones to send him back to a more primitive place that concerned him with staying alive and not so much other things. After some time (years), Chuck was able to get his physiological needs in check enough where he could focus on getting off of the island once more.
Needs
Homeostasis
Cortisol
Ghrelin
ADH (Antidiuretic Hormone)
Kidneys

Cast Away for most of the film centers around the survival of Chuck Noland, a FedEx engineer. On his way towards Malaysia, his plane crashes and he washes up on a island having to deal with new issues and problems like sex, hunger, and thirst. He would end up during the course of the film being on the island for four years, which is enough time for him to adapt and survive. Those three needs are all physiological needs, and without them his body will be disrupted and could result in death.
For food and water, during the movie he struggles with coconuts on the island. At first he tries to break it open by bashing it against a tree, then by using a rock and hitting it. Eventually he is able to open it by using a rock as a tool to cut it open. As discussed in Chapter 4, a person can go about two days without water before possibly dying. With 2% being the point of dehydration, and 3% being close to death. On an island surrounded by the ocean, salt water which will kill you if drunk without boiling will kill you. So one of his more important drives like water is to find a source of water and food to survive. The body can go about one to two weeks without food. For food, he sharpens a stick to function as a spear and kills a crab. Upon trying to eat the crab, he is disappointed that there is little meat, and mostly consists of sand and water. Eventually he does kill a fish and eats it to get sustenance. After being on an island for years, his skills that he wouldn’t of normally had like hunting and gathering he had learned.
Sex, even though there is none in the movie could be another source of motivation. He was alone on an island, with no human contact. Sex could have been another reason for him to return home, so he could be with his girlfriend before he left, Kelly.
When he arrived on the island and possibly during the plane crash, Chuck was more than likely experiencing stress. The body can produce hormones in situations that can be rewarding, warn us of immediate danger, or reward us for accomplishing something. Cortisol is an example of a hormone that the body can produce. Cortisol often called the stress hormone can be caused by may things, but for Chuck one example could be at first the inability to create a fire. It seems like he spends an entire day trying to start a fire, which he fails at ends up cutting himself on his hand. In frustration goes on a rampage thrashing around items as it is causing him issues that he can’t start a fire. He does eventually get the fire, and when he does he jumps and starts to sort of yell in satisfaction. Dopamine, a neurotransmitter is released into the body when something rewarding is accomplished, and for Chuck the fire was a goal worthy of joy and happiness.
Terms: Sex, Hunger, Thirst, Cortisol, Dopamine, Neurotransmitters, Drive

While watching Cast Away I pulled out a few different parts that coincide with chapter 3 and a few of the structures of the brain. The first thing that I pulled out was the use of his amygdala. In the beginning of the movie he is angry and chewing out come FedEx employees for a truck arriving 2 minutes late. During the scene in which the plane is going down, you can see the fear on his face. You see fear yet again the first night that he is on the island. He hears a noise in the bushes and he grabs an oar for protection. The amygdala is responsible for each of these feelings; fear, anger, defensive behavior. Another brain structure that I was able to pair with a few instances is the orbitofrontal cortex. The first instance that I attributed to the orbitofrontal cortex was when the plane was crashing and Chuck made the decision to potentially risk his life in order to grab the pocket watch that Kelly had given to him. In another scene Chuck sees a body out not far off of the shore. He runs/swims over to it only to find the person to be dead. His orbitofrontal cortex helps him make the decision to bring this man back to shore so he can bury him. His orbitofrontal cortex also helps him make the decision to strip this man of whatever could be useful to Chuck. The orbitofrontal cortex is responsible for incentive motivation. This goes to show that the brain is working with our subconscious to help us decide what we need in order to survive things.

Cast Away also touched on the topic of physiological needs from chapter 4. Physiological needs are hunger, thirst, and sex. While stuck on an island Chuck is faced with a true biological feeling of thirst and hunger. He is forced to find what he can in order to survive. Quenching his thirst is fairly easy in a sense that once he drinks enough water he will be in a state of satiety. He finds water to fulfill his biological feeling of thirst in coconuts, a puddle in a cave, rain water that had been caught in leaves. He even got creative and filled up empty coconuts with rain water to save for later. His biological feeling of hunger is a little bit trickier. Hunger has two different forms of regulation. One is a short-term process that has to do with the depletion of blood glucose levels. The other is a long-term process that has to do with the size of fat cells shrinking. I’m not sure if Chuck was ever able to fully fulfill his hunger over the 4 years that he was on the island. All he had to eat was fish, crabs, and coconuts. That does not provide his body with all the right nutrients that he needs, but he managed to find enough to keep his blood glucose levels up. He seemed to have lost quite a bit of weight in the 4 years that he was on that island and that causes me to think that his body was depleting fat cells in order to make up for the lack of nutrients and food that Chuck had. According to the set point theory, as Chuck settles back into his “normal” life, his weight should increase back to somewhere near where he was before his plane crashed.

Key Terms:
Amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex, physiological needs, short-term/long-term hunger process

In Chapter 4, we learned about how humans regulate and maintain the three physiological needs: thirst, hunger, and sex. The movie Cast Away does an amazing job at showing examples of the biological motivation behind satisfying our physiological needs, and maintaining homeostasis, when a person is truly deprived of thirst, hunger, and sex. Cast Away shows how motivated the human body will become, in times of desperate measures, in order to keep us alive and well.
In the beginning of the movie, we see a very driven and motivated, work-oriented, man named Chuck Noland, who works for FedEx. He has a goal for the employees at FedEx to deliver packages in a quick and timely manner over the holiday season. After the plane crashes, Chuck’s motives quickly change from completing work tasks to fighting for his life and satisfying his physiological needs, specifically thirst and hunger.
The brain (hypothalamus), organs (kidneys), and cells in his body “communicate” when they experience any type of life-threatening situation, in this situation: thirst. Chuck’s thirst is activated when his water volume falls and he becomes dehydrated. His body loses water through perspiration, urination, and bleeding. The intracellular fluid (all the water inside the cells) in his body need replenishment and the cellular dehydration causes osmometric thirst. Osmometric thirst is the primary cause of thirst activation (pg. 84-85). We can physically see that he is thirsty because of his chapped lips and dry mouth. To replenish his intracellular fluid, Chuck collects coconuts to get the coconut’s water. He also drinks rain water out of a leaf on the ground and learns to collect rain water in coconuts to save for later when his cells become dehydrated and activate his thirst. This is an example of how our body is motivated to regulate the water in our body to satiate our thirst and maintain homeostasis.
Chuck tries catching fish from the ocean but fails at his first attempts. We see a look of disgust on his face when he eats a minnow, coconut, and raw crab meat. He eats them anyway because he knows he needs the energy and nutrients. The liver monitors blood glucose levels and when the levels become low, the liver sends an excitatory signal to the lateral hypothalamus, which is the part of the brain that allows us to experience short-term hunger. The ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH) is the short-term appetites negative feedback system (pg. 88). When the liver detects high glucose levels, the VMH get stimulates and the brain’s need for food is satiated. This is an example of intraorganismic mechanisms, the bodily mechanisms affect one another to create, maintain, and terminate the psychological experience of a drive (pg. 83). “Drive activates behavior; negative feedback stops it” (pg. 81).
After four years of being on the island, the survival skills Chuck has learned makes it easier to get food and water. The movie shows us that overtime; he has become adapted to his environment on the island. He can throw a spear and catch fish on the first try. He is also able to eat raw fish and not be grossed out by the taste of it, this is an example of environmental influence on the need to eat. Chuck was able to regulate and maintain his physiological needs on the island because of his biological motives keeping him alive.

Terms used:
-Physiological Needs
-Homeostasis
-Thirst
-Thirst Activation (intracellular fluid, osmometric thirst)
-Hunger
-Ventromedial hypothalamus
-Intraorganismic mechanisms
-Negative feedback system

Jonathan Lutz - section 01

In Cast Away Chuck displays the three needs while both on and off the island. Particularly, how their interaction and contrast characterize a distinction between the first, physiological need, and the second and third, psychological and social need.
Before he is cast away on to the island, Chuck enjoys a level of freedom from his physiological needs, specifically deficiency motivation. Like most people living in industrialized countries, risk and energy commitment are so low that his prefrontal cortex can devote attention to growth motivations and the pleasant associated emotions: interest enjoyment, and vitality. Chuck devotes a majority of his time on his career, clearly exceeding any financial minimum for gaining nutrition. He seems to be doing well in his career (achievement/competency). He is shown exerting leadership over subordinates (power). Although his obsession with work puts a strain on his schedule(autonomy) and love life (intimacy), the ability to disseminate preferences is a form of freedom itself. He is free to coordinate goal oriented behavior of his choosing. Another example of this higher order behavior was the Christmas dinner the family enjoyed. The food on the table far exceeded necessary levels of nutrition. So what drives families to splurge on the holidays? The pleasure they get from eating the lavish food is a reward for properly navigating social schemas. They boast about careers, razz the younger couple for not being married, or wear ugly sweaters, all social concepts of a higher cognitive order, constructed for some form of human flourishing, but with a detachment from immediate concern for glucose levels and fat stores. This is not to say that that behavior in the maintenance of social norms are unnecessary or ungrateful, though it may be tempting to make moral claims about third world hunger and heart disease. Social systems are evolutionary advantageous. These drives are given to us by natural selection, justifying them as “needs” not just luxuries.
Once on the island, Chuck demonstrates the immediacy of physiological needs, the distinction I hope to also demonstrate. One of his first concerns is osmometric thirst. As the textbook stated, thirst manifests at 2 percent loss of water supply, dehydration occurring at 3 percent deficiency. It understandable that by day two he is frantically working to get coconuts open, exerting far more time and energy than ever before. While on the plane he used the sink water to splash on his face, barely 24 hours earlier. He attempts to drink water out of filthy leaves and puddles, behavior that would seem bizarre back in civilisation. Soon after he commits similarly exhausting behaviors to get food. A slave to his limbic system, he eats raw crab goo, whole minos, and more coconut than ever before. Once he satiates his deficiency motivations to a stable point, he does however still make time for his social and psychological needs. He buries the dead pilot(affiliation), makes effort not to lose the watch with a picture of his girlfriend(relatedness), and refuses to open one of the salvaged Fedex boxes(achievement), even though it potentially contained life saving supplies. He put himself in in danger multiple times for the volleyball Wilson. He used his own blood(volumetric thirst) to paint the face! To say these higher order goal directed behaviors saved his life is not just a Hallmark Card sentiment. It was humans who saved him. The people working on the ship took took social and psychological motivations to save Chuck from the ocean. It would not have affected their physiological need to sail on by in any significant.
Though Chuck is shocked by how people take hunger and thirst for granted, his ability to forage food and water didn’t get him off the island, goal directed behavior driven by social and psychological needs did.

Physiological Needs
Psychological Needs
Social Needs
Prefrontal Cortex
Emotion
Limbic System
Higher processing
Goal oriented behavior
Social Schemas
Drive
Osmometric thirst
Volumetric thirst

This movie has a main character, Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks). Chuck is showed as being a motivated man. This is the first identification I made in different ways throughout the whole movies that relates to psychology. Chuck being a motivated individual demonstrates what we have just learned through our textbook readings. His motivation in the beginning of the book is to complete and succeed in work. Doing so, he let his works take over his basic human needs. This is shown when he is not satisfying his thirst, hunger, and sex needs. Chuck is asked to go on a business call, where his plane ends up crashing. Motivation kicks in when the plane crashes and Chucks body goes into survival mode. He showed motivation when he reaches the island as well when he decided to not give up and fight to stay alive. This concept of fighting in a horrible situation could be because of the release of cortisol in his brain during this crisis. Chuck is the only survivor and has made it to an island where he is forced to survive on his own. There are a lot of comparisons in actions of Chuck that we can make from before the crash, while stranded, and being found. Chuck is not aware of his desire for water and is probably at a satiated state when he is on the plane and has water whenever he would need. Once the plane crashes and he is stuck on an island his motivation for water changes completely. Chuck goes into goal directed motivated behavior and is in panic trying to open up coconuts to get nutrients. The human body can go longer without water than it can without food, which explains why his first desire was to get the coconut. Chuck, like any of us, had an abundance of food with easy access before his crash. These foods serve many reasons like, enjoyment, celebration, etc.. While on the island Chuck does not have a variety or much of a choice with what to eat, and we see different motivation being shown with food. This motivation happens when his body starts to release ghrelin, and then he eats coconuts and kills a fish. He also sharpened a spear to kill a crab, and does but is not happy with the amount of meat. These foods that he is eating goes to show how powerful our biological motivations are. This makes me think about holidays like thanksgiving when families will eat until they feel sick and makes me wonder what true hunger would even feel like. We are so use to having food at are fingers whenever we need it, and it really is amazing how our biological motivations would kick in when we are not getting our bodies basic needs. The last concept that I related to this movie was the concepts of intraorganismic and extraorganismic mechanisms. Intraorganismic mechanisms can be demonstrated through the film when Chuck is getting something to eat and drink. Extraorganismic mechanisms were also shown in parts where Chuck needed to find and make shelter. We have talked about physiological and psychological needs, but social needs were shown as well. This was shown through Chuck’s volleyball named “Wilson”. This film showed us that all three basic needs show when they need to. Overall a lot of concepts from our readings related to this film!

Terms:
Physiological needs
Psychological needs
Intraorganismic mechanism
Extraorganismic mechanism
Cortisol
Grehlin
Thirst
Hunger
Needs

This film is all about survival. Finding water to stay hydrated, finding food to keep from going hunger, finding shelter and way to make a fire to stay warm, and using the resources you have to stay alive. The physiological needs of thirst and hunger are very much present through the film. First off, the immediate reaction we see when Chuck washes up on the island is fear. He is alone and afraid on an island and he doesn’t know what to do. During this moment in time for Chuck. His hypothalamus is working hard to keep the body at a regulated, homeostatic state, as the intense change in environment is occuring. During this, the hypothalamus is activating the sympathetic nervous system which alerts the body that the environment is changing so that it can adapt to its surrounding, also called the fight-or-flight response. This process involves inhibiting digestion in order to direct more energy toward the current situation threatening one’s life. After the initial shock of drifting onto this island the hypothalamus begins to activate the parasympathetic nervous system by going into recovery, rest, and digestion mode. The autonomic nervous system, beginning at the hypothalamus, and connecting these systems and organs that either excite or inhibit our bodily functions is what helps keep Chuck alive. Once the parasympathetic nervous system is activated, and digestion starts up again, Chuck’s brain now lets him know that he needs to find water and food, which leads to the next topic of thirst and hunger.

In total, water makes up about 60% of the body, including intracellular and extracellular fluid. Intracellular fluid is made up of all the water inside the cells. When this water needs replenished, osmometric thirst arises, which is the primary source of thirst activation and is what happened when Chuck calmed down and realized he needed to find water. The replenishment of extracellular fluid occurs after vomiting or excessive bleeding, because the extracellular fluid is found in our blood plasma and interstitial fluid. You will see that in the movie, Chuck attempts to go out on his life raft to reach the boat he has spotted, go overboard because of the waves, and cuts his leg badly on some corral. He makes it back to shore, gets his leg wrapped, and shortly after is motivated to drink water. I found the idea of thirst satiety to be an important part of the movie as well. Thirst satiety involves a negative feedback system that signals the body to stop drinking so much. Without this system, cellular dysfunction would most likely occur from over drinking and death then becomes very possible. I think the important concept to consider in relation to the movie is was the negative feedback system present when Chuck was on the island? He was constantly searching for water, and preserving it when he found, so he didn’t have the resources to over drink. Does that mean that the negative feedback was never in use while he was on the island? I think it does.

Along with the hypothalamus’ role of keeping the body at a homeostatic state, it also has a role of managing the involuntary actions of the kidneys when we are thirsty. The hypothalamus is monitoring the intracellular shrinkage, which as we stated before is the primary source of thirst activation, and releases a hormone into the bloodstream to tell the kidneys to conserve water. This results in a more concentrated urine than diluted. On top of this, the hypothalamus is also where the psychological drive for thirst originates, and this leads to the motivation to find something to drink. These concepts all connect to the moments throughout the movie where Chuck is motivated to find fresh water on the island and even drinking ice water when he returns to Memphis, and don’t forget the two cups of ice!

Terms:
Thirst
Hypothalamus
Interstitial Fluid
Intracellular Fluid
Extracellular Fluid
Psychological Drive
Autonomic Nervous System
Parasympathetic Nervous System
Physiological Needs
Homeostasis
Motivated
Sympathetic Nervous System

We see evidence in the movie of the different dimensions driving Hank’s character Chuck around the physiological need for food in two dramatically different environments. At the core are two regulatory mechanisms: the short-term appetite driven by the liver’s monitoring blood glucose levels and sending signals to the hypothalamus to stimulate hunger and the longer-term lipostatic regulatory mechanism that works to maintain body fat mass. Both mechanisms work to maintain a homeostatic equilibrium in the body. And yet, we see evidence of the importance of other factors at play motivating Chuck’s eating behavior, as he is much leaner on the island than he was when he arrived.

As blood sugar levels drop, sends the lateral hypothalamus (LH) messages to trigger the release of peptides (orexins) that create the psychological experience of hunger and food-seeking behavioral motivation (psychological drive) in other parts of the brain. When blood sugar rises to the homeostatic level the liver sends signals to the ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH), along with other signallers (stomach distention and CCK peptide release in the digestive track) to inhibit further eating (a negative feedback mechanism on the hunger drive). In Chuck’s pre-castaway life, there are other stimuli that impact his eating behavior. First, is the tendency to eat more in the presence of others. Second, there is the easy availability and variety of foods, both of which can stimulate the motivation to eat even without the triggering of the short-term appetite. We see the intensity of the desire for variety in the persistence with which Chuck tries to get fire to cook shellfish so that they are appealing to eat. Sight and smell of attractive foods can also stimulate the LH to enhance the motivational energy to consume food even when blood sugar levels are not low. Again, compare Chuck’s revulsion to the raw insides of the crab he catches to the savoring the cooked shellfish once he masters fire starting. Most of these additional environmental stimuli to eat are missing on the island. The diet is fairly monotonous, based largely off coconuts and shellfish, nobody is tempting Chuck with attractive looking and smelling foods, and there is no social stimuli around eating. Further, it is fairly warm year round, so his appetite is not being triggered by cold.

Each of these food sources requires effort to acquire, often well beyond what it would take to acquire something tasty in his pre-castaway life. Chuck spends a great deal of energy and is very persistent in learning to spear fish and to start fires. His desire for hunger is not just about calories, but a need for variety. The desire for variety of tastes is driven by evolutionary adaptation of taste centers in the brain in order to secure the diversity of nutrients that allows for survival and procreation. For instance, the nucleus accumbens and the septo-hippocampal circuit it is part of play a role in experiencing pleasure from naturally-occuring reinforcers—such as tasty foods—and fantasies about that pleasure that drive one to pursue them. Chuck knows crab to be a tasty treat, and is motivated to seek it out to provide some pleasure in his eating. The prefrontal cortex plays a larger role in learning what works and does not work in developing the skills to allow him to gain this new desired food source, and stimulates the emotions that help him persist beyond early failures to achieve his goal.

The longer term regulatory mechanism should be working to promote appetite on the island. Not being stimulated by short-term appetite or the additional environmental triggers to consume, Chuck’s body fat mass starts to drop. As it drops set point, the shrinkage in body fat cell size triggers the release of the appetite-stimulating hormone ghrelin, which stimulates the LH to increase appetite. This should continue to do so until Chuck consumes enough food to restore fat cell size to close to its equilibrium level. If he were to overshoot, and fat cell size increased more than homeostatic equilibrium levels, the fat cells would release the VMH stimulating hormone, leptin. And yet, as the years pass, Chuck continues to shed body fat mass, becoming leaner. This suggests that the environmental cues to eat that were present in Chuck’s life before he was stranded were working to overcome some of the longer-term regulatory mechanism’s control of his body fat mass, maintaining a mass above what it was likely trying to hold him to. On the island, it was likely working to help keep him motivated to eat the monotonous diet despite much enthusiasm to maintain a healthy body fat level, but that is all.

One also wonders about Chuck’s stress levels in the absence of job pressures, his somewhat obsessive focus on time, and trying to juggle work and personal life. Stress can stimulate appetite, and despite the trauma of the accident and stranding, over time, the simplicity of life and connection to natural cycles of the day and seasons as cues, likely led to lower stress and more attunement to natural rather than rhythms and body signals. Further, Chuck was not dieting. He was not depriving himself of calories. His fat loss was likely gradual, and less likely to stimulate ghrelin release by fat cells as a sudden drop. And even as it does, he is not relying on will-power to maintain a diet in a setting with readily available attractive foods that he would binge eat. So, if ghrelin is being released, Chuck likely is consuming a bit more food than before, raising his body fat levels back up a bit until the ghrelin release subsides. But he is not packing fat back on in the way someone who goes off a diet in the environment of modern society with access to a wide variety of tasty calorie-laden foods.
In many ways, we see that Chuck is becoming more in tuned with the intraorganismic mechanisms regulating hunger, in part because many of the previous extraorganismic mechanisms are not stimulating his appetite.

Terms: physiological need, psychological drive, hunger, appetite, regulatory mechanisms, homeostasis, lipostatic mechanism, fat cell mass, set point, ghrelin, leptin, short-term appetite, liver, blood glucose, hypothalamus, lateral hypothalamus (LH), orexins, ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH), stomach distention, cholocysteokinin peptide (CCK), stress, food variety, food availability, social cues, environment, dieting, binging, intraorganimic mechanisms, extraorganismic mechanisms, nucleus accumbens, septo-hippocampal circuit, prefrontal cortex, emotions, goals, persistence,

This week’s movie connection was the film, Cast Away, featuring Tom Hanks. In this film, Hanks is stranded on an island and must fight for survival. Throughout the movie, concepts from chapters three and four in the textbook are addressed as different factors motivate the character in his attempts at survival. Due to this, I will explore the different brain structures, hormones, and needs that arouse throughout the film.

When considering related concepts in chapter three, several brain structures and the hormone, oxytocin, was clearly behind some of Hanks’ actions. The brain structures such as the septo-hippocampal circuit, amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex, and reticular formation were present in the film. Firstly, the septo-hippocampal circuit is at work during Hanks’ time on the plane in the beginning of the movie. When he first gets on the plane, his hippocampus is functioning in “okay” mode and understands that the flight seems normal. Once the turbulence begins, his hippocampus switches to “not okay” mode as he begins to experience anxiety about the unfamiliar circumstances. This, in turn, effects the activation of the amygdala as Hanks’ fear and anxiety grows and as he understands those emotions on the faces of the pilots. During the turbulence, Hanks makes the choice to reach for the pocket watch his wife gave him, rather than the life jacket. This choice is processed in the anterior cingulate cortex due to the importance Hank has put into this gift over the potentially lifesaving device.

At several times throughout the film, we can see reticular formation in action. Once on the island, Hanks is constantly alert for danger. On his first day on the island, he sees something on the beach, processes it, and responds by going to pick it up. Another example is when he continues to hear thudding sounds. He hears the sound, reacts, and then responds multiple times until he realizes the sound is that of falling coconuts. Lastly, the hormone, oxytocin, is reintroduced into Hanks’ body when he creates his friend, Wilson. Before this, it can be assumed that Hanks’ body is low on oxytocin because of him living in solitude. Once Wilson is around, Hanks bonds with it and allows him to better cope with the stress of being stranded on this island.

The presence of oxytocin leads into the needs presented in chapter four. The hormone, oxytocin, helps to fulfill Hanks’ social needs. In comparison to his physiological needs, the social need is a relatively low priority but, nonetheless, important to Hanks’ sanity. The primary physiological needs that Hanks continually struggles to meet are those of thirst and hunger. These needs come from the drastic shift in homeostasis. In an attempt to satiate his thirst and hunger, and allow his body to return to homeostasis, Hanks works to perfect getting water out of coconuts, collecting water in hollow coconuts, and catching crabs and fish. The inability to fully fulfill these needs is outwardly noticeable by Hanks’ dry, cracked lips and thin figure.

Throughout this post, I have considered concepts from chapter three and four regarding brain structures, hormones, and needs. Several brain structures, the hormone, oxytocin, and physiological and social needs, are present throughout the film. These processes allow Hanks to survive on the island for four years and make it back home alive.

Terms:

Brain Structures
Hormones
Needs
Oxytocin
Septo-Hippocampal Circuit
Amygdala
Anterior Cingulate Cortex
Reticular Formation
Hippocampus
Social Needs
Physiological Needs
Thirst
Hunger
Homeostasis

The main character focused on the movie Cast Away is Chuck Noland played by Tom Hanks. He is a very busy businessman for a FedEx company that is constantly away from home on businesses trips. He is very time sufficient and likes to have thinks done with accuracy and consistency, with his coworkers as well. When he was in this setting at this time in his life he had social relationships with customers, coworkers, and even had a girlfriend at home. He doesn’t have to worry about struggling for food or drink, because there are places around to buy these things and he makes money with his job. On one specific business trip taken by airplane, it ends up crashing on a deserted island in which he is the only survivor. This is where he really realizes what survival means and the limits that he will go to in order to survival and be rescued to return back home to his normal life.
Chuck’s physiological needs are really put to the test, because he has to figure out what there is to eat and drink on the island in order to keep his biological functioning in order. He also has to go through being alone and without his girlfriend to satisfy the third physiological need which is sex. In a situation like this, one would have to realize if they are going to eat whatever available in order to survive or refuse to eat gross things with dying alone being the cost. I personally am a very picky eater so if I was in his situation I would probably starve and end up dying unless I can figure out how to cook fish or something. There are scenes where Chuck has to resort to cracking drinking out of coconuts where it is somewhat difficult to find one with sufficient enough liquids in it. He even has to drink dirty puddles in the sand, because gross tasting, dirty water is better than being completely dehydrated. There is another scene where he eats a raw minnow fish because he has not yet to find the tools he needs to cook it. When you’re to the point of starving, it is not as important to spend the time to cook it and make it super tasty. There are times where I would rather cook Roman noodles in the microwave in three minutes or so rather than bake a pizza in the oven for fifteen minutes or so depending on how hungry I am.
It is weird to think that most of us are so well off with enough food that we don’t wait to eat until we are so hungry we could die. We may eat three hours after a meal, but we are in no way about to wither away or starve. I get extremely hunger when I go all day without eating until that night, but even then it’s not that long without food. It is most important that we get out food intake in order to produce energy for us to get through the days. If one goes a long time without eating they can pass out, because they have no energy to be able to move or even maintain consciousness. Chuck’s social needs are also taking a hit, because he is stranded alone meaning he has no one to talk to. This is important because humans are social beings and without any human contact, we get depressed and lonely. With food and drink deprivation and bad weather, one can also hallucinate especially without another person to bring us back to reality. This is shown when he makes a volleyball “companion” named Wilson in order to feel like he is not alone.
Chuck also experiences many different hormones released in the new setting that he finds himself in. Cortisol, which is the stress hormone shows predominately because he needs to worry about eating, drinking, survival, shelter, getting rescued, and much more. Although the food and drink he does encounter may not be good, it would still release dopamine, because it is much better than going without any of that. Brain structures are also going to continuously play a role including the limbic system which regulates emotion control. It would be hard to try to keep your emotions from taking over and possible entering learned helplessness. The amygdala also controls fear, fight, flight, etc. when it comes to survival. This is what is activated when you are scared for something such as bad weather or creatures on the island. It is also activated when you decide to fight a creature that may be trying to attack. Overall, the movie does a great job showing our physiological, social, and psychological needs and how they are altered when in a time of deprivation. It really gets one thinking about how fortunate we are in our everyday lives where we seem to have an abundance of everything that we need important to our survival. This also explains why humans are living longer with each generation.

Terms:
Psychological needs
Social needs
Psychological needs
Hunger
Thirst
Homeostasis
Motivation
Emotion
Goals
Drives

Chuck Noland is a FedEx worker who becomes stranded on a deserted island after a plane crash. Chuck was forced to learn to survive without the luxuries of the modern world. Humans have three types of needs: social needs, psychological needs, and physiological needs. Chuck was immediately faced with physiological needs. Chuck must figure out how to get fresh water. Water is vital if a person is to survive. We begin to feel thirst after only 2% of the body’s water sources are depleted. Dehydration comes when 3% percent is depleted. Chuck had to develop important survival skills directly after his crash. In one scene, he spends a large amount of time attempting to harvest coconut water. After many failed attempts, his persistence wins out and he was able to get water. Chuck would have died quickly if he had not been able to open up the coconut. Despite getting water from the coconut, Chuck was clearly suffering from a lack of liquid resources as his lips were chapped and he was drowsy. Water can be lost through urination, sweating, and bleeding among other ways. Chuck suffers injuries on his leg and on his feet, depleting much of his water resources along with spending so much time in the sun and all his time spend on the sea where he inevitably ingested salt water. He is shown desperately drinking water from a leaf and a dirty puddle in the cave. With no other water options available, Chuck must drink in any way he can. At the end of the movie, it is clear he has mastered his water collecting abilities as he is seen with a large supply of water filled coconuts on his raft. Dehydration comes from intracellular depletion of water. Without water, the cells in our bodies die. When Chuck returns home, he is seen constantly drinking water. He always has a drink in his hand. On the island, water was an extremely scare resource and he had to do his best to keep himself hydrated even if the water was dirty. At home, water is luxuriously always in abundant supply and Chuck takes full advantage of this resource. He even mentions how much he missed ice, a resource that was completely unavailable on the island.
Hunger is another important physiological need. At the beginning of the movie, Chuck and Kelly are seen sitting down with their family taking part in a massive Christmas feast. People are more likely to overeat in the presence of others. When people are offered a variety of foods, they overeat as well, believing they are only taking a little of each. Food is often used as a means of social gathering. While it does give people the necessary nutrients for the day, people tend to eat more than they need. After getting water, Chuck must get food next. He uses part of a dress as a net to catch fish. He also despairingly eats coconut. Neither of these foods hold particular interest to Chuck besides the fact that they will keep him alive. This minuet amount of food is juxtaposed with the large table of food in the hotel food when Chuck gets back. The food is all seafood, which Chuck has just spent the last four years eating. When people eat so much so quickly, leptin is not fast enough to circulate through the body and tell the brain it is full. Chuck has only had enough food to survive and it is clear he is disgusted by the waste of food. His environment has taught him to eat enough to survive, not to eat until he is utterly stuffed unlike the people who have never experienced the true effect of ghrelin.
Terms: Ghrelin, leptin, needs, intracellular

In the beginning of the movie Cast Away, Chuck Noland is portrayed as this workaholic even to the point where he puts work above basic needs such as food and drinks. The scene where he needs to leave his wife because he gets paged in for work can be argued that it even puts a hinderance on his intimate life. However, once his plane crashes and Chuck becomes stranded on the island, this all changes. Satisfying his physiological needs, especially his thirst and hunger, becomes Chuck’s number one priority. Over the next couple days, deficiencies in his bloodstream and tissues sent signals to his brain telling him that he needed water and nutrients. He satisfies this in different ways, whether it’s breaking open coconuts, drinking water that’s trapped on plans, etc. Later on, since he doesn’t have an intimate problem, Chuck seems to try and satisfy this need in a different way by creating a makeshift friend called “Wilson” that’s made from a volleyball. This can also be connected in trying to achieve a social need as well. The amygdala can also be tied to the events Chuck went through. First off, when the plane was going down, his amygdala was for sure sending signals to his brain to alert him there is a threatening event occurring. This in turn created several stimulations that resulted in things such as increased respiration, pain suppressions, and a feared facial expression on his face. Another instance was later on in the movie when he was afraid he wouldn’t get rescued at all and these occurred once again, until he finally tried to commit suicide but ultimately failed. However, there were also cheerful moments in the movie too. One instance of this was when he finally got a fire started, the hormone dopamine was released throughout his body and it showed while he was yelling in joy and jumping and beating his chest. This also fulfilled a social need of achievement and power, and although no real people were around to recognize it, one can see him almost brag about it to his makeshift friend Wilson.
This movie reflects how our psychological drives can influence our behavior. When there was a chemical imbalance and he needed nutrition, you see him motivated to bust coconuts open and ignore the FedEx boxes that have washed up to shore. Although it was at first difficult to get it open, the audience sees him persistent to fulfill this need. The inverse can also be seen, when his hunger and thirst are somewhat satisfied but he is in need of tools to achieve a certain goal, we see him shuffling through the FedEx boxes to see what materials he can use. He may still be hungry or thirsty while he does this, but it depends on the intensity of our drives and whichever is the more intense, that’s the kind of behavior in which we exhibit. Throughout this movie we see Hull’s drive theory in action as Chuck battles with his mind and body to survive over a course of 4 years alone on an island.
Terms: Hull’s drive theory
Hormone
Dopamine
Drive intensity
Physiological and Social Needs
Amygdala
Persistence (lecture)

In the film, Chuck Noland (interpreted by Tom Hanks) is an executive of the multinational courier company FedEx that is involved in a plane crash that left him isolated on a remote tropical island in the middle of the ocean. This story perfectly shows how Chuck is constantly trying to nurture his needs. A need is any condition within the person that is essential and necessary for life, growth and well-being, but due to Chuck resources, he is mostly concerned about satisfying needs that will keep him alive.
The three physiological needs are inherent within the workings of our biological system; they are thirst, hunger and sex. This last one is considered a species need (it is not life threatening) so he will not have to generate energy or direct behavior to satisfy it. The thirst need is the most urgent one, his hypothalamus creates a consciously experienced motivational state that keeps him in the search for water in order to maintain his homeostatic level. The hunger need is affected by cognitive, social and environmental influences. In the last part of the movie, when Chuck is back with the society, there is an interesting moment that made me laugh-- he grabbed a crab leg with his hands staring at it with an amazed look on his face. This scene reflects how food is seen as a celebration tool instead of a way to nourish people, like Chuck desperately needed on the island. I think that here, the movie criticizes how food is used as an environmental influence that, related to enjoyment, has an extraorganismic influence rather than a biological one that is still necessary for many people.
Other needs that chapter 4 mentions, but does not focuses on, are the psychological and social needs although I have little information about this, I would consider the creation of the character Wilson as a social need.
As we can see, his motivation to cover his physiological needs makes him create ingenious ways to do things like catching rainwater, opening coconuts and fishing. This creativity is probably involved in the dopamine release and reward system of the brain: There are many environmental events that require maintaining incentive motivational properties that may make dopamine be released. This dopamine released by the hypothalamus acts as a reinforcer and it generates good feelings as it is the occurrence of unpredicted rewards that we could notice with his happiness when starting the fire. Other brain areas that are important in the movie are the amygdala and the reticular formation. The first night that Chuck spent in the island, he was scared by the sound of some branches moving or falling down, this perceived threatening event stimulated the amygdala that may also have stimulated the hypothalamus ( that controls the fight or flight response), paraventricular nucleus ( that releases the stress hormone) and many others. The reticular formation wakes and alerts the cortex so it could process the incoming information.
To summarize, although he had his physiological needs covered, I found it impressive the way he survived without having enough nutrients in his body that maintained him away from diseases or having a good immunological system that healed him when he was injured. Now that Chuck will not have to focus on this basic needs anymore from a life threatening point of view, he seems that he has to create new motivational states that allow him to energize towards a goal because, as he said, “who knows what the tide could bring tomorrow”.

Terms used:
Need
Hypothalamus
Motivational state
Homeostatic level
Environmental influence
Extraorganismic influence
Dopamine
Reward system
Hypothalamus
Amygdala
Reticular formation
Paraventricular nucleus
Hormone

This movie portrayed many examples of physiological, psychological, and social needs. The physiological need of sex was alluded to when Chuck met up with Kelly after returning home, but it was a lot easier to pick out concrete examples of Chuck’s thirst and hunger during the movie. For example, Chuck’s thirst came into play right after he got to the island. He desperately tried to break coconuts to get the coconut milk, and eventually became so thirsty that he drank some fairly dirty rain water. I found it interesting that he did not collect rain water right away, especially during one of the first big storms, but Chuck must have been distracted by the gash in his leg and was possibly underestimating his biological urge of thirst. By the end of the movie, Chuck was more resourceful and collected rain water in coconuts. Chuck’s interaction with hunger varied throughout the movie. During the Christmas feast at the beginning of the movie, he, Kelly, and their family overindulged in food. On the island, Chuck eased his hunger by catching fish and crab, sometimes cooking them over the fire, and eating them. When Chuck arrived back in Tennessee, they had a celebration for him, and he seemed mystified by the mass amount of food, ease of creating a flame with the handheld lighter, and the fact that he had ice in his drink. All the things he struggled for or did not have access to on the island were readily available in excess when he returned back to “normal” life. Although he no longer had to struggle to survive at the end of the movie, he chose to sleep on the floor, flicking the lights on and off, reminiscing about days on the island when life was simple, there were no luxuries, and Kelly was still “his” love.

Social interactions changed drastically throughout the movie. At the beginning, he was a boss and ordered people around, shouting about time and deadlines. He seemed chummy with the people on the FedEx flight, then when he found Albert dead, he buried him in a dignified fashion. If he had been thinking more resourcefully, he could have taken more of Albert’s clothing and accessories for himself, but I wonder if he held himself back for moral reasons. On the island, Chuck created Wilson and began talking to it to fulfill his social needs. Even though Wilson was a volleyball, Chuck became very attached to it; when he lost Wilson, he cried and apologized as if he had just lost his best friend. When Chuck was on the plane to return home, he talked with his friend and apologized for not supporting him when his wife died, saying, “I shoulda been there for ya,” even though that would not have been possible for Chuck, since he was stranded on a remote island at the time. Completely shocked by the news of Chuck’s return, Kelly was overwhelmed with emotion and could not bring herself to face Chuck at the airport. When he did finally see her, Kelly initiated a lot of touching, hand holding, hugs, and kisses. Grief-stricken again, Chuck confided in his friend by saying, “I’ve lost her all over again.” Chuck’s social interactions with Kelly in the end of the movie were emotional, and it was clear that strong feelings were still present; Kelly even stated, “You’re the love of my life.”

Psychological needs were apparent when Chuck was being autonomous (taking his raft into the waves for the first time) and feeling competent (making fire). When he made fire, he seemed very joyful, speaking in loud tones, banging on his chest and exclaiming, “I have made fire!” A more depressing example was when Chuck was practicing his plan for suicide, attempting to assert power and control in his life. After Chuck lost Wilson, it had a psychological toll on Chuck, and he started giving up on his survival plan, setting his ore afloat in the water and laying on his raft, nearly missing the passing ship due to apathy and possible weakness from the unfulfillment of his other needs.

Terms: Psychological needs, physiological needs, social needs, competence, autonomy, thirst, hunger, and sex

The film Cast Away depicts a man known as Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks) who is a punctual, career-oriented and task driven person. After experiencing a plane crash en route to Malaysia, Chuck relies on fulfilling his physiological needs versus paying concern to the many things that were once important to him, like getting a package delivered to a customer on time. While on the island, Chuck’s primary focus is to fulfill two of his three types of needs, hunger and thirst. Listed in this post are some examples where Chuck focused on his motivation to obtain homeostasis in order to gain and preserve physical energy to successfully get off of the island.

The amygdala in the brain actively interprets external stimuli in the environment. When Chuck first arrives at the island he begins hearing an inconsistent rustle/thud coming from the forest. Instinctively Chuck’s amygdala associates the loud noise as a predator, which puts him on high alert. Ironically enough, Chuck figures out that the noise he is hearing from the forest is actually coconuts falling from trees. As Chuck’s brain begins processing that the sound is coconuts falling from the tree, his insula becomes activated to give motivation in figuring out how to open the coconut successfully to drink coconut water and the fruit inside so his body can maintain homeostasis. As the movie continues, it depicts Chuck attempting to start a fire for nearly three days--as he is sick of eating coconuts and eating raw crab legs. Once Chuck is finally successful at starting the fire, Chuck begins to experience pleasure which is released through his nucleus accumbens. After starting the fire, Chuck is able to celebrate with Wilson by cheering on the shore and singing---as Chuck expresses his excitement his brain is releasing the chemical dopamine. The longer that Chuck remains on the island, the better he gets at hunting and gathering food successfully to stay alive.
CH 3 ME CONTENT: AMYGDALA (p53)
INSULA (p 67)
HOMEOSTASIS.
NUCLEUS ACCUMBENS(p 64)
DOPAMINE (p64)
After day three or four, Chuck decides to take his inflatable boat into the Pacific Ocean and attempt to get off of the island. The force which brought Chunk to this conclusion was a psychological drive. Chuck did not NEED to get off of the island, but he wanted to. As Chuck begins paddling his way through the waves, he comes upon waves that are nearly ten feet high. Chuck becomes unable to power through the waves and starts being pushed back to shore, the act of the waves can be seen as negative feedback as the wave begins inhibiting Chucks drive to want to escape the island and actually leaves him discouraged to attempt the waves for years. During Chuck’s journey on the island, he makes a “friend” out of a volleyball that he named Wilson. Wilson acts as a extraorganismic mechanism for Chuck because Wilson maintains and influences what little social environment that Chuck can have on a deserted island. Chuck looks to Wilson as his partner in crime when devising a plan to escape the island, how to get enough rope for the makeshift raft, and leaves the island with Chuck when Chuck attempts the ocean for the final time.
CH 4 ME CONTENT: PSYCHOLOGICAL DRIVE (p88)
NEGATIVE FEEDBACK (p89)
EXTRA ORGANISMIC MECHANISMS (p91)
WORD COUNT: 524