What is instinct? Various definitions of this concept

What is instinct? What remains of the animal instinct in us human beings? Can we trust our instinct? And what does science say about all this?

There are many questions that we still ask ourselves to this day about a concept as complex and as basic as the instinct, which does not have the same meaning in popular psychology as it does for the followers of Freud or for neuroscience current. In this article we will see what are the main ways of understanding and defining this concept.

• Related article: "Are we rational or emotional beings?"

What is instinct? Various interpretations of this concept

There are various ways of conceiving what instincts are. Below we will see the most outstanding.

The Darwinian instinct

We all learn in our school stage the same definition of instinct: an innate, stereotyped and specific behavior that is triggered by certain types of stimuli and that it continues until its consummation, even in the absence of the stimulation that provoked it.

For Darwin, instincts were an essential part of the nature of every living thing.

It is the instinct that allows the subsistence, the relationship with the environment and with other individuals of the same species.

The same instinct that drives bees to build geometric panels or allows bees to birds migrate thousands of kilometers across the seas to return months later to their place of source.

But, what happens if we try to transfer the Darwinian instinct to the human being? Do we retain the same capacity as other animals? Sometimes instincts such as reproduction or feeding seem to collide head-on with our ability to act with our own free will.

Animal instinct vs human instinct

A priori, the most common explanation is that instinct is something inherited and innate, and that we are born with it. We can verify this with a multitude of animals, including our favorite pets. Who has not seen his dog salivate when giving him food? It seems evident that in the animal kingdom, the instincts are preserved and fulfill their vital function.

Nevertheless... what happens to human beings? Let's take an example: the feeding instinct. This primal instinct allows all living things to balance their needs for energy and rest. Up to here, good. But what about, for example, disorders such as anorexy wave bulimia?

The human being is the only animal capable of defying the nature of his instincts. We are the only living beings can act against the perpetuation of our own species. And this would also break the instinct par excellence, which is none other than the survival instinct.

However, it seems so there are other series of instincts, such as cooperation or religious (currently investigated) that are characteristic of the human being and that have helped us to evolve as a species and become one of the most complex creatures of nature that exist.

Freud's theory of instincts

Another of the approaches to understand a concept such as instinct was handled in its day Sigmund Freud, for whom the instincts would be forms of specific tension of a supposed psychic energy, of dynamizing action, which express the bodily needs and produce all the characteristic phenomena of life.

Instinct would therefore be a pressure that would produce the need for a reaction and compel it to be executed. This approach perceives the instinct more as a need than as an innate sensation or behavior that provokes that need.

For Freud and the current of psychoanalysis that arose from his theoretical approaches, mental phenomena and social activities would be determined by the constant need to reduce these tensions produced by the instincts, which would constitute the driving force of human life and which are perceived as disruptive and unpleasant feelings.

This view of instinct is, of course, an approach without any scientific basis, despite being very popular coming from a figure as controversial as Freud has always been.

Instinct in popular psychology

The concept of instinct has given rise to various interpretations of it in popular psychology. Let's look at several of these conceptions.

Instinct as intuition

Though instinct and intuition are not the same, it is very common to use them in contexts in which the two concepts are intertwined. The instinct here understood as a way of knowing or acting based on feelings, sensations and motivations, whether bodily or cognitive, but that do not come from calm analysis, but rather seem to break out sudden.

Something similar happens with the maternal instinct: despite the lack of scientific proof of its existence, the term to define a kind of impulse that pushes a woman to feel motivation and affection for a present offspring or future. Although motherhood is a desire that takes different forms in each woman and sometimes it may never happen.

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Maslow's instinct

Abraham Maslow was an American psychologist and the leading exponent of humanistic psychology. Maslow believed that all human beings have essentially vital needs. for the maintenance of health, including love or esteem.

Maslow began to popularize terms such as desire or motivation to symbolize that type of instincts or internal needs of each one. of us, claiming that these “instinctual” needs were a kind of genetically built-in instincts in all of us.

Weisinger's Modern Instinct

In the 21st century, the conception of the term instinct has changed a lot. The meaning has been reformulated and figures such as Hendrie Weisinger, clinical psychologist and author of the book The genius of instinct, have tried to explain that instincts are not obscure or primitive, nor are they something to repress.

According to Weisinger, human behavior is more intelligent than animal behavior because we have more instincts, and not the other way around. With them we would already have everything we need to improve our lives; that is, we would be "programmed" to succeed.

This psychologist also postulates that the human being has lost contact with his instincts and that, in most cases, he acts against what they would drive him to. According to him, we could improve all aspects of our lives by recovering our instincts and using them to our advantage.

instinct and free will

The latest scientific research has challenged the knowledge we had until now about instincts, free will and the human will. Studies conclude that we act before we think, driven by our instincts and our emotions.

It seems that the awareness of having made a decision comes when, in fact, we have already made it. And it is that our decisions could be unconsciously predetermined seconds before our conscience perceives them as if it had originated them in a premeditated way.

However, all is not lost. Our behaviors obey, to a large extent, the habits and customs that we have been acquiring throughout our lives. And here free will does intervene.

If, for example, a person decides to react aggressively whenever his survival instinct feels attacked, and so reaffirms with his experiences, this person has applied his free will to anticipate his future aggressive responses to any attack. Therefore, this "premeditation" will have been conditioned by education and environment, but also by his personal choice.

Bibliographic references:

• Pinker, S. (1994). The language instinct: how the mind creates language. Madrid: Publishing Alliance.
• Frandsen, G. (2013). The man and the rest of the animals. Tinkuy No. 20, 56-78.