Instinct is the inherent inclination of a living Life is a characteristic that distinguishes objects that have signaling and self-sustaining processes (biology) from those that do not, either because such functions have ceased (death), or else because they lack such functions and are classified as inanimate organism In biology, an organism is any contiguous living system . In at least some form, all organisms are capable of response to stimuli, reproduction, growth and development, and maintenance of homoeostasis as a stable whole. An organism may either be unicellular (single-celled) or be composed of, as in humans, many trillions of cells grouped into toward a particular behavior Behavior, or behaviour , refers to the actions of an organism or system, usually in relation to its environment, which includes the other organisms or systems around as well as the physical environment. It is the response of the organism or system to various stimuli or inputs, whether internal or external, conscious or subconscious, overt or. The fixed action patterns In ethology, a fixed action pattern is an instinctive behavioral sequence that is indivisible and runs to completion.[citation needed] Fixed action patterns are invariant and are produced by a neural network known as the innate releasing mechanism in response to an external sensory stimulus known as a sign stimulus or releaser (a signal from one are unlearned and inherited. The stimuli can be variable due to imprinting in a sensitive period or also genetically fixed. Examples of instinctual fixed action patterns can be observed in the behavior of animals Ethology is the scientific study of animal behavior, and a sub-topic of zoology, which perform various activities (sometimes complex) that are not based upon prior experience, such as reproduction Reproduction is the biological process by which new "offspring" individual organisms are produced from their "parents". Reproduction is a fundamental feature of all known life; each individual organism exists as the result of reproduction. The known methods of reproduction are broadly grouped into two main types: sexual and, and feeding among insects Insects are a class within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (head, thorax, and abdomen), three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae. They are among the most diverse group of animals on the planet and include more than a million described species and represent more than half of all known living. Sea turtles, hatched on a beach, automatically move toward the ocean, and honeybees communicate by dance the direction of a food source, all without formal instruction. Other examples include animal fighting, animal courtship Courtship is the traditional dating period before engagement and marriage. During a courtship, a couple dates to get to know each other and decide if there will be an engagement. Usually courtship is a public affair, done in public and with family approval behavior, internal escape functions, and building of nests A nest is a place of refuge to hold an animal's eggs and/or provide a place to live or raise offspring. They are usually made of some organic material such as twigs, grass, and leaves; or may simply be a depression in the ground, or a hole in a tree, rock or building. Human-made materials, such as string, plastic, cloth, hair or paper, may be used. Another term for the same concept is innate behavior.

Instinctual actions - in contrast to actions based on learning which are served by memory In psychology, memory is an organism's ability to store, retain, and recall information. Traditional studies of memory began in the fields of philosophy, including techniques of artificially enhancing the memory. The late nineteenth and early twentieth century put memory within the paradigms of cognitive psychology. In recent decades, it has and which provide individually stored successful reactions built upon experience - have no learning curve, they are hard-wired and ready to use without learning. Some instinctual behaviors depend on maturational processes to appear.

Biological predispositions are innate biologically vectored behaviors that can be easily learned. For example in one hour, a baby colt can learn to stand, walk, glide, skip, hop and run. A biological predisposition may also mean that a person, because of his/her genetic makeup, is more prone to certain conditions or disease. Learning is required to fine tune the neurological wiring reflex like behavior. True reflexes A reflex action, also known as a reflex, is an involuntary and nearly instantaneous movement in response to a stimulus. In most contexts, in particular those involving humans, reflex actions are mediated via the reflex arc; this is not always true in other animals, nor does it apply to casual uses of the term 'reflex' can be distinguished from instincts by their seat in the nervous system; reflexes are controlled by spinal or other peripheral ganglia In anatomy, a ganglion is a biological tissue mass, most commonly a mass of nerve cell bodies. Cells found in a ganglion are called ganglion cells, though this term is also sometimes used to refer specifically to retinal ganglion cells, but instincts are the province of the brain. In a situation when two instincts contradict each other, an animal may resort to a displacement activity.

Evolution

Instinctive behavior can be demonstrated across much of the broad spectrum of animal life. According to Darwin Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist[I] who established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection. He published his theory with compelling evidence for evolution in his 18's theory of evolution Evolution is the change in the inherited traits of a population of organisms through successive generations. After a population splits into smaller groups, these groups evolve independently and may eventually diversify into new species. A nested hierarchy of anatomical and genetic similarities, geographical distribution of similar species and the by natural selection Natural selection is the process by which certain heritable traits—those that make it more likely for an organism to survive and successfully reproduce —become more common in a population over successive generations. It is a key mechanism of evolution, a favorable trait, such as an instinct, will be selected for through competition and improved survival rate of life forms possessing the instinct. Thus, for evolutionary biology Evolutionary biology is a sub-field of biology concerned with the origin of species from a common descent and descent of species, as well as their change, multiplication and diversity over time. Someone who studies evolutionary biology is known as an evolutionary biologist. To philosopher Kim Sterelny, "the development of evolutionary biology, instincts can be explained in terms of behaviors that favor survival of the fittest.

A good example of an immediate instinct for certain types of bird is imprinting Imprinting is the term used in psychology and ethology to describe any kind of phase-sensitive learning that is rapid and apparently independent of the consequences of behavior. It was first used to describe situations in which an animal or person learns the characteristics of some stimulus, which is therefore said to be "imprinted" onto. This is the behaviour that causes geese to follow around the first moving object that they encounter, as it tends to be their mother. Much work was done on this concept by the psychologist Konrad Lorenz Konrad Zacharias Lorenz was an Austrian zoologist, animal psychologist, ornithologist, and Nobel Prize winner. He is often regarded as one of the founders of modern ethology, developing an approach that began with an earlier generation, including his teacher Oskar Heinroth. Lorenz studied instinctive behavior in animals, especially in greylag. Another important aspect of imprinting is sexual selection^[1]. Young birds tend to prefer the features of the parent of the opposite sex when it come to the preferred mate. An inhibitory effect is the Westermarck Effect, the tendency not to be sexually attracted to siblings, because of the close contact in a sensitive period.

The idea that no learning is required for instinctive behavior does not always apply when it concerns the behaviors themselves. But the key stimuli and the specific outcome may vary somewhat due to different inputs. The output may vary in the sense that a finch The true finches are passerine birds in the family Fringillidae. They are predominantly seed-eating songbirds. Most are native to Southern Hemisphere, but one subfamily is endemic to the Neotropics, one to the Hawaiian Islands, and one subfamily – monotypic at genus level – is found only in the Palaearctic. The scientific name Fringillidae will sing naturally (instinctively), but it will sing a song similar to the songs it has picked up in a sensitive period which explains the different regional accents in the finch songs.

The Baldwin Effect

The Baldwin effect functions in two steps. First, phenotypic plasticity allows an individual to adjust to a partially successful mutation, which might otherwise be utterly useless to the individual. If this mutation adds to inclusive fitness, it will succeed and proliferate in the population. Phenotypic plasticity is typically very costly for an individual; learning requires time and energy, and on occasion involves dangerous mistakes. Therefore there is a second step: provided enough time, evolution may find an inexorable mechanism to replace the plastic mechanism. Thus a behavior that was once learned (the first step) may in time become instinctive (the second step). At first glance, this looks identical to Lamarckian evolution Lamarckism is the idea that an organism can pass on characteristics that it acquired during its lifetime to its offspring (also known as heritability of acquired characteristics or soft inheritance). It is named after the French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744–1829), who incorporated the action of soft inheritance into his evolutionary, but there is no direct alteration of the genotype The genotype is the genetic constitution of a cell, an organism, or an individual usually with reference to a specific character under consideration. For instance, the human albino gene has two recessive alleles, recessive a and recessive a. It is a generally accepted theory that inherited genotype, transmitted epigenetic factors, and non-, based on the experience of the phenotype A phenotype is any observable characteristic or trait of an organism: such as its morphology, development, biochemical or physiological properties, behavior, and products of behavior . Phenotypes result from the expression of an organism's genes as well as the influence of environmental factors and the interactions between the two.

Definitions

Scientific definition

The term "instincts" has had a long and varied use in psychology. In the 1870s, Wilhelm Wundt Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt was a German medical doctor, psychologist, physiologist, philosopher, and professor, known today as one of the founding figures of modern psychology. He is widely regarded as the "father of experimental psychology". In 1879, Wundt founded one of the first formal laboratories for psychological research at the established the first psychology laboratory. At that time, psychology was primarily a branch of philosophy, but behavior became increasingly examined within the framework of the scientific method Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning. A scientific method consists of. While use of the scientific method led to increasingly rigorous definition of terms, by the close of the 19th century most repeated behavior was considered instinctual. In a survey of the literature at that time, one researcher chronicled 4000 human instincts, meaning someone applied the label to any behavior that was repetitive.^{[citation needed]} As research became more rigorous and terms better defined, instinct as an explanation for human behavior became less common. In a conference in 1960, chaired by Frank Beach, a pioneer in comparative psychology Comparative psychology usually refers to the study of the behavior and mental life of animals other than human beings. However, psychologists and scientists do not always agree on this definition. Comparative psychology has also been described as branch of psychology in which emphasis is placed on cross-species comparisons—including human-to- and attended by luminaries in the field, the term was restricted in its application.^{[citation needed]} During the 60's and 70's, textbooks still contained some discussion of instincts in reference to human behavior. By the year 2000, a survey of the 12 best selling textbooks in Introductory Psychology revealed only one reference to instincts, and that was in regard to Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud (6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939), was an Austrian neurologist who founded the psychoanalytic method of psychiatry. Freud is best known for his theories of the unconscious mind and the defense mechanism of repression, and for creating the clinical practice of psychoanalysis for treating psychopathology's referral to the "id Id, ego, and super-ego are the three parts of the psychic apparatus defined in Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche; they are the three theoretical constructs in terms of whose activity and interaction mental life is described. According to this model, the uncoordinated instinctual trends are the "id"; the organised realistic" instincts.^{[citation needed]}

Any repeated behavior can be called "instinctual," as can any behavior for which there is a strong innate component.^{[citation needed]} However, to distinguish behavior beyond the control of the organism from behavior that has a repetitive component we can turn to the book "Instinct" (1961) stemming from the 1960 conference. A number of criteria were established which distinguishes instinctual from other kinds of behavior. To be considered instinctual a behavior must a) be automatic, b) be irresistible, c) occur at some point in development, d) be triggered by some event in the environment, e) occur in every member of the species, f) be unmodifiable, and g) govern behavior for which the organism needs no training (although the organism may profit from experience and to that degree the behavior is modifiable). The absence of one or more of these criteria indicates that the behavior is not fully instinctual. Instincts do exist in insects and animals as can be seen in behaviors that cannot be changed by learning. Psychologists do recognize that humans do have biological predispositions or behaviors that are easy to learn due to biological wiring, for example walking and talking.^{[citation needed]}

If these criteria are used in a rigorous scientific manner, application of the term "instinct" cannot be used in reference to human behavior.^{[citation needed]} When terms, such as mothering, territoriality, eating, mating, and so on, are used to denote human behavior they are seen to not meet the criteria listed above. In comparison to animal behavior such as hibernation Hibernation is a state of inactivity and metabolic depression in animals, characterized by lower body temperature, slower breathing, and lower metabolic rate. Hibernating animals conserve food, especially during winter when food is short, tapping energy reserves, body fat, at a slow rate. It is the animal's slowed metabolic rate which leads to a, migration, nest building, mating In biology, mating is the pairing of opposite-sex or hermaphroditic organisms for copulation and in social animals it also includes the raising of their offspring. For animals, mating methods include random mating, disassortative mating, assortative mating, or a mating pool and so on that are clearly instinctual, no human behavior meets the necessary criteria. And even in regard to animals, in many cases if the correct learning is stopped from occurring these instinctual behaviors disappear, suggesting that they are potent, but limited, biological predispostions. In the final analysis, under this definition, there are no human instincts.^{[citation needed]}

In humans

Some sociobiologists and ethologists Ethology is the scientific study of animal behavior, and a sub-topic of zoology have attempted to comprehend human Humans are a species of animal known taxonomically as Homo sapiens , and are the only extant member of the Homo genus of bipedal primates in Hominidae, the great ape family. However, in some cases "human" is used to refer to any member of the genus Homo and animal Animals are a major group of mostly multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life. Most animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and independently. All animals are also social behavior In biology, psychology and sociology social behavior is behavior directed towards society, or taking place between, members of the same species. Behavior such as predation which involves members of different species is not social. While many social behaviors are communication communication between members of different species is not social in terms of instincts. Psychoanalysts Psychoanalysis is a body of ideas developed by Austrian physician Sigmund Freud and continued by others. It is primarily devoted to the study of human psychological functioning and behavior, although it can also be applied to societies. Psychoanalysis has three applications: have stated that instinct refers to human motivational Motivation is the activation or energization of goal-orientated behavior. Motivation is said to be intrinsic or extrinsic. The term is generally used for humans but, theoretically, it can also be used to describe the causes for animal behavior as well. This article refers to human motivation. According to various theories, motivation may be rooted forces (such as sex and aggression In psychology, as well as other social and behavioral sciences, aggression refers to behavior between members of the same species that is intended to cause pain or harm. Predatory behavior between members of one species towards another species is also described as "aggression." To exhibit aggression towards members of another species is), sometimes represented as life instinct and death instinct In classical Freudian psychoanalytic theory, the death drive is the drive towards death, destruction and forgetfulness. It was first proposed by Sigmund Freud in Beyond the Pleasure Principle. The death drive opposes Eros, the tendency towards cohesion and unity. The death drive is sometimes referred to as "Thanatos" in post-Freudian. This use of the term motivational forces has mainly been replaced by the term instinctual drives.

Instincts in humans can also be seen in what are called instinctive reflexes. Reflexes, such as the Babinski Reflex (fanning of the toes when the foot is stroked), are seen in babies and are indicative of stages of development. These reflexes can truly be considered instinctive because they are generally free of environmental influences or conditioning.

Additional human traits that have been looked at as instincts are: sleeping Sleep is a naturally recurring state of relatively suspended sensory and motor activity, characterized by total or partial unconsciousness and the inactivity of nearly all voluntary muscles. It is distinguished from quiet wakefulness by a decreased ability to react to stimuli, and it is more easily reversible than hibernation or coma. Sleep is a, altruism Altruism is selfless concern for the welfare of others. It is a traditional virtue in many cultures, and a core aspect of various religious traditions such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Sikhism, and many others. Altruism is the opposite of selfishness, disgust Disgust is an emotion that is typically associated with things that are regarded as unclean, inedible, infectious, or otherwise offensive. For example, "I am disgusted by the stench and sight of that heap of rotting viscera." In The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, Charles Darwin wrote that disgust refers to something, face perception Face perception is the process by which the brain and mind understand and interpret the face, particularly the human face, language acquisitions Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive, produce and use words to understand and communicate. This capacity involves the picking up of diverse capacities including syntax, phonetics, and an extensive vocabulary. This language might be vocal as with speech or manual as in sign. Language acquisition, "fight or flight The "fight-or-flight response", also called the "fight-or-flight-or-freeze response", the "fright, fight or flight response", "hyperarousal" or the "acute stress response", was first described by Walter Cannon in 1929" and "subjugate or be subjugated". Some experiments in human and primate societies have also come to the conclusion that a sense of fairness Justice is the concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, fairness, or equity, along with the punishment of the breach of said ethics could be considered instinctual, with humans and apes willing to harm their own interests in protesting unfair treatment of self or others.^[2][3]

Many scientists consider that it is instinctual in children to put everything in their mouths, because this is how they tell their immune system An immune system is a system of biological structures and processes within an organism that protects against disease by identifying and killing pathogens and tumor cells. It detects a wide variety of agents, from viruses to parasitic worms, and needs to distinguish them from the organism's own healthy cells and tissues in order to function about the environment and the surroundings, what the immune system should adapt to.^[4]

Other sociologists argue that humans have no instincts, defining them as a "complex pattern of behavior present in every specimen of a particular species, that is innate, and that cannot be overridden." Said sociologists argue that drives such as sex and hunger cannot be considered instincts, as they can be overridden. This definitory A definition is a passage that explains the meaning of a term , or a type of thing. The term to be defined is the definiendum (plural definienda). A term may have many different senses or meanings. For each such specific sense, a definiens (plural definientia) is a cluster of words that defines it argument is present in many introductory sociology and biology textbooks,^[5] but is still hotly debated. Psychologist Abraham Maslow argued that humans no longer have instincts because we have the ability to override them in certain situations. He felt that what is called instinct is often imprecisely defined, and really amounts to strong drives. For Maslow, an instinct is something which cannot be overridden, and therefore while it may have applied to humans in the past it no longer does.^[6]

In the book An Instinct for Dragons An Instinct for Dragons is a book by University of Central Florida anthropologist David E. Jones, which seeks to explain the alleged universality of dragon images in the folklore of human societies. In the introduction, Jones conducts a survey of dragon myths from cultures around the world and argues that certain aspects of dragons or dragon-like^[7] anthropologist Anthropology is the study of humanity. Anthropology has origins in the natural sciences, the humanities, and social sciences. The term "anthropology", pronounced /ænθrɵˈpɒlədʒi/, is from the Greek ἄνθρωπος, anthrōpos, "human", and -λογία, -logia, "discourse" or "study", and was first David E. Jones suggests a hypothesis that humans just like monkeys have inherited instinctive reactions to snakes, large cats and birds of prey. Folklore dragons Dragons are legendary creatures, typically with serpentine or otherwise reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures have features that are combinations of these three, which would explain why dragons with similar features occur in stories from independent cultures on all continents. Other authors have suggested that especially under the influence of drugs or in dreams, this instinct may give raise to fantasies about dragons, snakes, spiders, which makes these symbols popular in drug culture. The traditional mainstream explanation to the folklore dragons does however not rely on human instinct, but on the assumption that fossil remains of dinosaurus gave raise to similar speculations all over the world.

See also

• Maladaptivity
• Biological Imperative
• Organism
• Nature
• Preparedness (learning)
• Psychological nativism
• Comparative Neuroscience at Wikiversity
• Ethology
• Human ethology

References

1. ^ http://www.google.nl/search?hl=nl&rlz=1B3GPCK_nlNL304NL305&q=zebra+finch+sexual+selection&start=50&sa=N
2. ^ Researchers wonder if fairness instinct has been bred into the human race (summary of a Philadelphia Inquirer article of 2000)
3. ^ Programme 4 - Natural Born Heroes - BBC, Wednesday 13 November 2002
4. ^ Dirt Is Good For Our Health
5. ^ Sociology: An Introduction - Robertson, Ian; Worth Publishers, 1989
6. ^ Abraham H. Maslow, Motivation and Personality Chapter 4, Instinct Theory Reexamined
7. ^ David E. Jones, An Instinct for Dragons, New York: Routledge 2000, ISBN 0-415-92721-8

Beach, F. A. The descent of instinct. Psychol. Rev. 62:401-10.

Categories: Ethology | Neuroethology Concepts

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