A study of hunger behavior in the white rat by means of the obstruction method. Comparison of sex and hunger behavior.

Abstract

The strength of the hunger drive (i.e., the tendency to approach food) of 120 mature rats was experimentally determined by the obstruction method. The animals were divided into 6 groups, each consisting of 10 males and 10 females. The 1st group was tested immediately after eating, the other groups after starvation periods of 2, 3, 4, 6, and 8 days respectively. An effort was made to keep all other factors constant. The data indicate that the hunger drive reached its high point after 2 days starvation for females, after 4 days for males and after 3 days when the data for the 2 sexes were combined. There was a steady and marked decline in the strength of the hunger drive after these high points. The 8-day group displayed but little behavior directed toward food. These results are compared with those obtained in the writer''s previous study of the sex drive (Warner, L. H. A study of sex behavior in the white rat by means of the obstruction method. Comp. Phychol. Monog. 4(22): Pp. 68. 1927). Comparison of the groups which, of those tested, represent the hunger and the sex drives, each at its maximum, indicates that the tendency for a white rat to approach a food object is stronger than its tendency to approach a sex object. This is true of rats of both sexes although the difference is not so great in the case of the female.