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Instinct is the inherent inclination of a living organism towards a particular complex behaviour, containing innate (inborn) elements.The simplest example of an instinctive behaviour is a fixed action pattern (FAP), in which a very short to medium length sequence of actions, without variation, are carried out in response to a corresponding clearly defined stimulus.
Self-preservation is essentially the process of an organism preventing itself from being harmed or killed and is considered a basic instinct in most organisms. [6] Most call it a "survival instinct". Self-preservation is thought to be tied to an organism's reproductive fitness and can be more or less present according to perceived reproduction ...
Evolutionary psychology proposes that the human psychology consists primarily of psychological adaptations, [2] which is opposed by the tabula rasa or blank slate model of human psychology. Early behaviourists, like B.F. Skinner , tended to the blank slate model and argued that innate behaviors and instincts were few, some behaviourists ...
Philosophy in classical Greece is the ultimate origin of the Western conception of the nature of things. [8]According to Aristotle, the philosophical study of human nature itself originated with Socrates, who turned philosophy from study of the heavens to study of the human things. [13]
In evolutionary psychology, people often speak of the four Fs which are said to be the four basic and most primal drives (motivations or instincts) that animals (including humans) are evolutionarily adapted to have, follow, and achieve: fighting, fleeing, feeding and fucking (a more polite synonym is the word "mating"). [1]
By the 19th century, the predominant perspective was contrary to that of Locke's, tending to focus on "instinct." Leda Cosmides and John Tooby noted that William James (1842–1910) argued that humans have more instincts than animals, and that greater freedom of action is the result of having more psychological instincts, not fewer. [19]
Instinct is often misinterpreted as intuition. Its reliability is dependent on past knowledge and occurrences in a specific area. [dubious – discuss] For example, someone who has had more experience with children will tend to have better instincts about what they should do in certain situations with them. This is not to say that one with a ...
Some natural sciences also place emphasis on human behavior. Neurology and evolutionary biology, study how behavior is controlled by the nervous system and how the human mind evolved, respectively. [5] In other fields, human behavior may be a secondary subject of study when considering how it affects another subject. [6]