Eating habits and the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivations is a common concept explored in the area of psychology, as well as learning behaviours. To break it down, we can start by agreeing that all of us have innate biological needs, such as the need to sleep, to eat or to shit.
Feeling hungry is our body communicating with us that it is in need of food to provide it with some energy. This is what we call intrinsic motivation, when our stomach growls or we feel a craving that we need something, anything, to fill us up.
On the other hand, sometimes we check the time and it’s 2pm and we realise we still need to eat lunch so we quickly whip something up, or we see the sight or smell of a freshly cooked, warm and spicy bowl of ramen noodles, with its perfect girth and tender meat on the side...
The point is, that’s extrinsic motivation. It is cues in our environment, whether it is the time of day, sight or smell of food which evokes a response in our body to feel hunger. In fact, some studies have found when comparing individuals who are in the Normal BMI with those in the Obese BMI that those who are obese tend to respond more heavily to extrinsic cues as opposed to their natural intrinsic needs.
So how does this relate to Maccas? Well we live in a capitalist society, and these sneaky fast food corporations have figured out a way to trick our bodies into wanting more. The basic concept behind this is a term in psychology known as conditioning. We have an unconditioned stimulus, in this case food, which leads us to elicit a biological response, which is hunger. That part is pretty straightforward. However, now is where it gets tricky- when we add something completely neutral to the unconditioned stimulus enough times, this can ALSO lead us to produce the same biological response to the neutral stimulus when we choose to present it by itself.
Let’s take a step back and think about it. The truth is, in an alternate universe where Maccas doesn’t exist, if we saw the golden arches we literally wouldn’t react to it- its sight would have no meaning. For all of us, it would have started out as a neutral stimulus. The reason why we feel hungry then, is because of what we have learned over time what the arches represent- it has been added together with our experiences of the McRibs and McNuggets on so many previous occasions that having the arches by itself is enough for us to have that craving for one more happy meal.
