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On the psychology of drinking: Being thirsty and perceptually ready
Author(s) -
Aarts Henk,
Dijksterhuis Ap,
Vries Peter
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
british journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.536
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8295
pISSN - 0007-1269
DOI - 10.1348/000712601162383
Subject(s) - psychology , thirst , feeling , task (project management) , recall , cognition , perception , cognitive psychology , action (physics) , social psychology , developmental psychology , medicine , physics , management , quantum mechanics , neuroscience , economics
The present research is concerned with cognitive effects of habitually regulated primary motives. Specifically, two experiments tested the idea that feelings of thirst enhance the cognitive accessibility of, or readiness to perceive, action‐relevant stimuli. In a task allegedly designed to assess mouth‐detection skills, some participants were made to feel thirsty, whereas others were not. Results showed that participants who were made thirsty responded faster to drinking‐related items in a lexical decision task, and performed better on an incidental recall task of drinking‐related items, relative to no‐thirst control participants. These results suggest that basic needs and motives, such as thirst, causes a heightened perceptual readiness to environmental cues that are instrumental in satisfying these needs.