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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 10 



periods of time. The society, furthermore, is not 

 equipped with cultm-al techniques for deahng with 

 its envu-onment so as to offer surety of food sup- 

 ply. Agricultm'e is but Httle developed ; weapons 

 are cumbersome; tools are almost lacking; and 

 food is neither stored nor preserved in any abund- 

 ance or for any length of time. 



Accompanying these frustrating conditions are 

 others adverse to the satisfaction of the hunger 

 drive, especially the fatiguing and painful aspects 

 of the food quest. The hunter and gatherer must 

 go in search of food at least every other day through- 

 out the year. He must walk long distances, as 

 many as 20 miles a day, in his quest for food. He 

 may be forced to run at top speed through almost 

 impenetrable jungle and swamp to bag a single 

 monkey or coati, and once having bagged his prize 

 he may be forced to climb a tree to retrieve it or 

 the arrow with which he shot it. Game and forest 

 products must always be carried back to camp — 

 sometimes a long distance away. In walking and 

 running through swamp and jungle the naked 

 hunter is exposed to thorns, to spines, and to 

 insect pests; he may fall from a tree (as he fre- 

 quently does) while harvesting fruits or retrieving 

 game; he is exposed to attacks from jaguars, 

 alligators, and poisonous snakes; he sometimes 

 suffers intensely from heat, cold, and rain. At 

 least 25 percent of the time he retiu-ns to camp 

 empty-handed or with insufficient food to com- 

 pletely nourish his family, for which he may be 

 chided by his relatives. In short, while the food 

 quest is differentially rewarding because food for 

 siu-vival is always eventually obtained, it is also 

 always punishing because of the fatigue and pain 

 inevitably associated with hunting, fishing, and 

 collecting food. 



Psychologically speaking, these are the condi- 

 tions that give rise to the preoccupation of the 

 Siriono with food problems, to their affective at- 

 titudes toward food, and to their strong secondary 

 drives based on the drive of hunger. The antici- 

 pation of the intensely punishing aspects of the 

 food quest^ — actual food deprivation, possible non- 

 success on the himt, fatigue, pain, and other forms 

 of punishment — tends to evoke strong anticipatory 

 responses with respect to food. These anticipa- 

 tory responses — for example, strong food responses 

 to weak hunger stimuli^ — are, in effect, secondary 

 drives. For purposes of this discussion they may 

 be regarded as appetite and anxiety responses. 



Actually psychologists are not yet agreed as to 

 the differences between the secondary drives of 

 appetite and anxiety. A satisfactory definition 

 of and a distinction between these two concepts, 

 though potentially of great value in a systematic 

 analysis of culture and human behavior, has yet 

 to be developed. Recently staff members " at 

 the Institute of Human Relations, Yale University, 

 have proposed the following definitions. 



Appetite is a secondary drive whose motivating response 

 is anticipatory and whose original response is a para- 

 sympathetic response wliich occurred just prior to or during 

 the goal act of a given drive. 



Anxiety is a secondary drive whose motivating response 

 is anticipatory and whose original response is a sympathetic 

 response which occurred just jsrior to or during the goal 

 act of a given drive. 



In the above definitions, the distmction between 

 appetite and anxiety, although both are anticipa- 

 tory responses, rests on the assumption that in 

 the case of the former the original response arises 

 in the parasympathetic nervous system, while in 

 the case of the latter it arises in the sympathetic 

 nervous system. This is essentially the position 

 taken by Mowrer (1940), who has dealt at some 

 length with the problem of anxiety. It is doubt- 

 ful, however, whether this distinction is of much 

 practical utility m the analysis of cultural be- 

 havior. In the case of the Sii-iono data the im- 

 portant fact to consider is that there are strong 

 anticipatory responses toward food. Some of 

 these may be purely appetitive responses, others 

 anxiety responses, and still others a combination 

 of both. These anticipator^^ responses result, 

 moreover, not from a single factor, but from a 

 combmation of all the factors listed above. 



Attention should be called to the fact that 

 anticipatoiy responses toward food in Siriono 

 society may be due, in part at least, to the con- 

 flicting factors that affect the quest for food. 

 These conflicting factors seem to be much more 

 pronounced among the Siriono than among most 

 other peoples. On the one hand, a man is 

 strongly motivated (and eventually forced, of 

 course) to go m search of food because of a 

 momithig hunger drive, a desire for prestige, or 

 the need for a sexual partner. On the other hand, 

 he is also strongly motivated to lie in his hammock 

 and to postpone the search for food as long as 



I' These definitions were developed by Dr. I. Child, Dr. John W. M. 

 Whiting, and Dr. Clellan S. Ford. They have not been published as yet 



