Case Study: The Teletubby With A Motive

The Teletubby with a Motive The newspaper details the event of a peculiar man, Terez Owens, dressed in a teletubby costume who broke into his friend's home and stole food a couple days before Halloween. Though the friend chose to press charges over the damages made to his house from the break-in, the man is only charged with "criminal mischief and disorderly conduct" (Weinreich, 2014). Owens had broken a window and door, cutting himself in the process , and then raided his friend's fridge for Chinese takeout leftovers. Looking at the event through a psychological perspective, this bizarre event can be explained quite easily with psychology. The concept of motivation, which explains how actions are made to satisfy needs and desires, explains Owens's actions. He was motivated by his primary needs of hunger, to satisfy his need. …show more content…
In this scenario, his stressor was hunger and desperation. He most likely used the cognitive appraisal approach to first, identify the stressor and to second, examine the resources he has to see if he is capable of remediating the stress (Ciccarelli & White, 2014). As he thought of his friend's apartment as a difficult but his only resource, he identified hunger as a very stressful stressor. His choice to choose between breaking into his friend's apartment and starving gave him a double approach-avoidance conflict, in that he had to decide between the pros and cons of each decision (Ciccarelli & White, 2014). Breaking into the apartment, though a crime, gave him an option to food. Being a friend of the apartment owner was a pro because Owens knew he wouldn't press charges (although he did) and with his criminal background of theft, it seemed like a doable task. However, the complications of breaking in were also weighed. Deciding not to break in, though lawful, seemed to bring Owens hunger. Owens thus decided on breaking in to resolve this stressful