Physiological Needs Flashcards
What is a Need?
- conditions that are essential for the maintenance of life and for the nurturance of growth and well-being
ex: We need water, nutrients, sleep
What does a physiological need often arise from?
a deficiency, we feel the need most when we’re lacking in it
ex: hunger, thirst, sleep
Explain Hull’s Drive Theory
- his attempt at explaining how it is that our biological needs connect to our psychological states
- Physiological deprivations and deficits create biological needs and if they remain unsatisfied, biological deprivation becomes strong enough to occupy the attention and generate a psychological drive
- a need doesn’t bring us to what it is that is desired, it’s when the need becomes strong enough to create a drive that pushes us to get what is desired
Ex:
- begin the day with eating breakfast
- throughout the day there is a biological need: lack of food in your stomach
- Drive: The feeling of hunger: psychological aspect - appetite (wanting to eat food)
- Goal-directed behavior: you’re going to establish a target to find food and do it
Biological need (lack of substance in your stomach -> need of nutrients) vs. psychological drive (feeling of hunger - appetite - wanting to eat) - not the same thing
Drive
- psychological discomfort (tension and restlessness)
- drive energizes activity towards behaviour that mitigates the biological deficit
Homeostasis
- the tendency to maintain a steady ideal state of equilibrium within the body
- e.g., optimal hydration, blood glucose levels, body temperature
- When disrupted, a drive activates behaviour to compensate and return to the ideal state
Negative Feedback
- the mechanism that stops a behaviour once the steady state is reached (opponent process to drive)
- The mechanism by which our body often returns us to homeostasis
Ex: when we’re hungry and eat, we don’t eat until infinity, we get full and say that’s enough, we need a shut-off
Antecedent Conditions
Any given drive can be brought about by a multitude of antecedent conditions (events) and based on those conditions there will be a variety of behavioural consequences
ex: Tiredness can be brought on by staying up late studying, and a behaviour to go back to an ideal state could be to take a nap
Intraorganism mechanisms:
- all biological regulatory systems within the person that act in concert to activate, maintain, and terminate the biological needs that underlie drive
- It is not just internal, its internal BIOLOGICAL
Ex: hunger – low blood glucose levels trigger feelings of hunger (appetite), which trigger eating behaviour
Ex: Pain - the biological menstrual process triggers feelings of pain which trigger pain-reducing behaviours
Extraorganismic mechanisms:
- all the non-biological influences that play a part in activating, maintaining, and terminating drive
- they include things like our environment but it also includes some internal things that are not biological
ex: hunger – the appearance/smell of a meal affects your appetite, which affects how much of it you eat
- Can also include environmental factors, social factors, cultural factors
Can extra organismic mechanisms also be internal?
Yes, just not biological!
For example, cognition can also play a role
- beliefs about food may make us more likely or less likely to eat (thoughts can be internal but it’s non-BIOLOGICAL)
Can both intra-organic and extra-organismic factors influence a negative feedback loop?
Yes, our bodies biologically generally know when enough is enough but our cognitions can also come into play, if we’re for example on a diet and we stop ourselves from eating when we reach a certain amount of calories
Short-term appetite:
how much you want to eat at any given moment as opposed to a long-term scale
What hypothesis goes with the short-term appetite
Glucostatic hypothesis: blood glucose levels regulate hunger and eating behaviour in the short-term
- Liver monitors blood glucose levels:
- Low: lateral hypothalamus -> appetite
- High: ventromedial hypothalamus (negative feedback) -> satiety
What are intra- and extra-organismic mechanisms that influence short-term appetite?
Intraorganismic mechanisms: stomach distension (stretch) - signals to the brain how full the stomach is
- a bit of a delayed/slow process - it takes about 20 mins or so for the signal from our stomach to reach our brain (ex: all you can eat buffet)
Extraorganismic mechanisms: temperature, appearance/smell/variety of food, time of day, presence of others
Long-term appetite
what are you generally like over a long period, are you someone who generally eats a lot?
What hypothesis goes with the long-term appetite
Lipostatic hypothesis: body fat levels regulate hunger in the long term
- Low levels: lateral hypothalamus -> ghrelin -> hunger
- High levels: adipose tissue -> leptin (negative feedback) -> satiety
Set-point Theory
- Theory that can explain why it is that not everyone has the same consuming behaviours, why people find it easy vs. difficult to gain/lose weight
- Everyone inherits a specific number of fat cells, a certain metabolic rate, and a set point for how full fat cells should be
- As the size of fat cells reduces (ex: going on a diet) below ideal, eating behaviour increases (to restore those fat cells) until the set-point is reached
- Set point can change with age (not set in stone), history of caloric restriction/chronic excess food intake
Ex: Metabolism slows down as you age
When we chronically restrict our caloric intake our body fights even harder to get us back to our original state
What happens when one’s body regulation of food intake and body weight do not cohere with one’s personal or cultural ideals? What is the problem with it?
- they engage in cognitive regulation
- Problem: unlike intra-organismic mechanisms, cognitive control does not have a natural negative feedback system
Ex: just because u say you want to be a certain number on a scale, once u hit that it doesn’t mean you’ll stop there
What are dieters vulnerable to?
Binging
- they tend to assume cognitive controls are stronger than physiological controls
- environmental events and feelings distract from cognitive control
- Ex: letting your eating habits go when it’s midterm/exam season
