Biological needs and motives produce drives

Biological needs and motives produce drives which throw into function mechanisms to maintain homeostasis. Should the sources producing the drive be intense enough to cause a very pronounced disequilibrium, the condition is known as an emotion. Since an emotion is an exaggeration of processes similar to those involved in biological and social needs, there is no strict dichotomy between them, although there is general agreement that pronounced disturbed states resulting from intense stimulation should be considered as belonging to the category of emotions. However, the intraorganic causes of disequilibrium such as hunger, thirst, and sex have been classified by different writers both as emotions and as biological needs.

Emotions have been differentiated from drives and biological needs in two ways other than that of the intensity of the disturbance. In the first place, the mild disequilibratory conditions expressed in biological needs can last for long periods of time and may even be present throughout the lifetime of the individual. If these disturbed conditions become more severe, so that they can be placed in the category of emotions, their duration is much shorter. This follows from the fact that intense disturbances of homeostasis such as increased heart rate, blood pressure, and other physiological processes, if persistent, result in pathology. All the body mechanisms are mobilized to overcome the unsatisfactory condition, and as a consequence the greater the disturbance of homeostasis, the greater is the drive for normal conditions to be reinstated. If normal conditions are not reinstated, pathology results, and only in pathological cases do emotions persist for long periods of time. In the second place, a biological need is usually directed toward a goal and maintained for a long period of time. This may not necessarily be characteristic of an emotion. This difference is true only because biological needs may be persistent and so can be directed toward a goal for long periods of time, whereas an emotion is directed toward a goal only as long as it lasts; and since the duration of an emotion is short (if the disturbance is great), the goal-directed activity terminates upon dissipation of the emotionally disturbed state. There is an insistence on the part of some individuals that an emotion can be understood only in terms of goal-directed behavior. As a matter of common knowledge, the avoidance and approach responses are much more vigorous to a situation producing an emotion than to one alleviating a biological need. It is true that very intense disturbance of homeostasis may disorganize the total behavior pattern of an individual so that only a generalized response is given to a particular situation. This happens when the external environment is of such intensity as to tend to elicit changes in the individual which are beyond his boundaries or capacity of modification.

External energy sources--stimuli of pain. heat, pressure, light, sound, loss of balance, and restraint--if they are intense, produce widespread bodily changes which mobilize the organism for immediate action. Intraorganic changes--those produced by nutritive deficiencies or glandular dysfunctions--produce a state of disequilibrium, which may be maintained for long periods of time. If in nutritive deficiencies the homeostasis is not reinstated by food intake. debility is the result, with a decrease of general activity. Glandular secretions can maintain disequilibrium for long periods of time. The intraorganic states producing disequilibrium would be classified ordinarily as biological needs, since their results can persist for long periods of time with comparatively mild disequilibratory effects. However, the summation of a number of disequilibratory conditions of a comparatively mild nature can produce an emotion. The intraorganic needs can be easily converted into an emotion upon additional stimulation. Thus a person may be "irritated" or "nervous" or in "bad humor." Such a condition can easily change into an emotional state even if only mild concomitant stimuli producing disequilibrium are present. Thus the frequency of outbursts of anger increases steadily in both children and adults with the length of time since the last meal. The hunger drive produces a heightened reactivity of set making the organism much more susceptible to emotional outbursts which are out of proportion to the immediate disturbing conditions within the environment.

Emotions have been defined in terms of the physiological processes related to them. Correlated with these physiological processes are the ways in which the individual experiences the accompanying emotion. It is evident that, even if the related physiological processes of two emotions are similar, the feeling content may be different. Thus an individual who experiences an emotion of excitement in response to frustration in love, a threat to his life, and loss of his fortune experiences the total emotional situation in three different ways.