Yes, it is. The “Fight or Flight Response.”
Ok people, it should be obvious people have instints… some oh you have purposed that since new born babies are near helpless they are stupid and because they lack the ability to survive on their own that they lack instincts… that is totalaly asinine. The many, many animals, humans included, are helpless at birth. A baby, cat, dog, bird, etc… will starve if uncared for at birth not because they lack instincts but because they have evoled such that the parents are expected to care for them while they are young. This allows a shorter gestation period and the young also benifit from the parents teaching. Babies are not only just as smart as adults, they are smarter. Think of all the things they learn as they grow to adulthood. Think of how much easier it is for humans to learn when they are young, especially complex things like language. Babies are not stupid just ignorant, there is a difference. Ignorance means they simply lack the knowledge and expirience… but they do have the intelligence to learn it. If you dump a human of id say about 3-5 years of age, old enough to move around effectively on its own in the wild, it would have as reasonable a chance at survival as any other small mammal of approximate size/strength/mobility in that particular environment. Just as if you dumped and adult human. This doesnt say an adult and a child would have the same chance… they are in different weight classes… anyway yes humans have instincts, and no we arent the only animals that dont act soley on them… we just happen to be fairly intelligent, highly social, and have the ability to make and use tools… wanna see human instincts in effect… go to a bar with a couple of friends and start a fight… see how the different groups fight or flee together, even groups not originally involved in the fight. Or even better go with somebody is like an aquaintace of yours… somebody really dont care if they catch a beat down… somebody fights with them youll feel a natural urge to jump in… later…
Instinct: an innate pattern of behavior, unaffected by learning, found across an entire species that satiates a somatic tension.
A reflex, like blinking or infants sucking, is the closest thing I can think of to a human instinct but since infant sucking does not satiate the somatic tension of hunger it’s called a reflex. The infant will suck on your finger or a pacifier and starve to death. All the “feel good” somatic tensions like hunger, thirst, sexual tension (when we’re mature enough) direct us to learn behaviors that will satiate those tensions. The baby learns to suck on the nipple. The teenager learns to masturbate. The somatic tension, the urge, keeps him experimenting (learning) until he locates the vigina. Which he may never find.
As for people jumping out of the way of cars, the jump is as much reflexive as blinking. But even if it wasn’t a person of that
age will have learned what happens if you don’t move.
I remember in school ( I studied psych.) a study with infants trying to identify pure instincts. The closest they came was that an infant would display a fright response (crying) when a dark unfamilar object ( black rubber glove) was lowered into the babies crib. I can’t find the study so it could have been that the baby had an upset stomach. Regardless, I’m sure that through introspection (a no-no in experimental anything) that it was assumed that they had found an instinctual behavior in an infant.
I believe that unless you call reflexual behavior an instinct that humans don’t have instincts. Most everything we want to call instinct is learned by using the original equipment from the manufacturer.
I’m with the camp that says we have intincts, we just choose to suppress them. Some people here are defining instincts as inalterable patterns of behaviour, but I think you’d have a hard time proving that, even for animals.
I wonder if human beings have any instincts unique to our species? One philosopher, John ralston Saul, once suggested that we have an instinct to build a society (in the broadest definition of that term) anywhere we go. We develop moral codes, sets of social expectations, and symbolic forms of communication automatically.
M-W:
Nothing in those definitions require that the inherent “aptitude, impulse, or capacity” must be satisfied. Just present. So if you make up your own definition for “instinct” you can come to any conclusion you want.
OK, how about avoidance of fire? Most animals will avoid fire: Is this instinct? Because it’s quite possible for an animal, despite this initial fear of fire, to learn that fires can be a source of food and safety, expecially if there are humans near the fire. That seems to me to mean that animals can override instinct via learned behaviour.
Hamish, you almost had me sold on the “instinct to build a society”. The “moral codes, sets of social expectations, and symbolic forms of communication automatically” aren’t bad either. The first problem I have is that there are too many exceptions. There are zillions of humans that abhore all those things. Another problem is which came first, the instinct to make moral codes, social expectations etc or the learning process (of elimination) that lead us (taught) us to do these things.
Barbi, you sound a tad grumpy today. I think the reason that we are on different pages is that I am looking for a more technical example of human instinct. For instance if we were talking about “human feelings” Then you would start hitting me over the head with all sorts of lyrical examples of human feelings when I am really looking for something regarding tactile stimulation and synapses. Anyway the problem as I see it is that you are not dealing with is the fact that a human instinct will show up across the species. You know, Eskimos, Asians, Caucasians, Latinos etc. etc. The fact that an individual has some inherited traits, some aptitudes, impulses or capacities is not what we’re talking about. Not what I’m talking about. As for my definition … not bad huh? Actually it is from definitions by the original theorist. This is a really old question. The whole issue was dead and buried in the 1950s. There’s an article by Harlow written in 1953 where he critiques early theorists. Early on in the article (Of Mice, Men and Motives) he reqrets the early demise of human instinct theory. That’s in 1953. The guys trying to prove the existence of human instincts flourished in the 40’s. Anyway by the 50’s the instinct theorists had had their collective asses kicked by newer developemental theorists. I’m still looking for a good example of human instinct. Not a reflex (sucking), not a physical drive (hunger), and not an inherited trait (good with numbers or words). I want to find some nest-building humans. Something like that.
Chronos, I’m guessing but I think you might be very close with the “fire” thing. I have not been able to find this study but I vaguely remember one about infants having an instinctive fear of unfamiliar dark objects. The experimenters were lowering a black rubber glove into the infants crib. Apparently every time they did this the baby would show a fright response by crying. Instinctual fear of unfamilar dark objects? Don’t know. Can’t find the study. The same chapter had babies crawling across a glass floor to see if there was an instinctual fear of falling. Can’t find the study.
Hamish, you almost had me sold on the “instinct to build a society”. The “moral codes, sets of social expectations, and symbolic forms of communication automatically” aren’t bad either. The first problem I have is that there are too many exceptions. There are zillions of humans that abhore all those things. Another problem is which came first, the instinct to make moral codes, social expectations etc or the learning process (of elimination) that lead us (taught) us to do these things.
Barbi, you sound a tad grumpy today. Period and double period. I think the reason that we are on different pages is that I am looking for a more technical example of human instinct. For instance if we were talking about “human feelings” Then you would start hitting me over the head with all sorts of lyrical examples of human feelings when I am really looking for something regarding tactile stimulation and synapses. Anyway the problem as I see it is that you are not dealing with is the fact that a human instinct will show up across the species. You know, Eskimos, Asians, Caucasians, Latinos etc. etc. The fact that an individual has some inherited traits, some aptitudes, impulses or capacities is not what we’re talking about. Not what I’m talking about. As for my definition … not bad huh? Actually it is from definitions by the original theorist. This is a really old question. The whole issue was dead and buried in the 1950s. There’s an article by Harlow written in 1953 where he critiques early theorists. Early on in the article (Of Mice, Men and Motives) he reqrets the early demise of human instinct theory. That’s in 1953. The guys trying to prove the existence of human instincts flourished in the 40’s. Anyway by the 50’s the instinct theorists had had their collective asses kicked by newer developemental theorists. I’m still looking for a good example of human instinct. Not a reflex (sucking), not a physical drive (hunger), and not an inherited trait (good with numbers or words). I want to find some nest-building humans. Something like that.
Chronos, I’m guessing but I think you might be very close with the “fire” thing. I have not been able to find this study but I vaguely remember one about infants having an instinctive fear of unfamiliar dark objects. The experimenters were lowering a black rubber glove into the infants crib. Apparently every time they did this the baby would show a fright response by crying. Instinctual fear of unfamilar dark objects? Don’t know. Can’t find the study. The same chapter had babies crawling across a glass floor to see if there was an instinctual fear of falling. Can’t find the study.:smack: :smack: :smack:
(I could use my Psychology textbook for a cite. If I could find the book amidst all the clutter)
Adult humans, regardless of location or culture, speak to infants in specific tones and speech patterns. We switch from normal speech to baby talk when presented with the stimulus of an infant.
I agree with the other Dopers “Humans are animals. We have instincts.”
Ya, Doc. I’ve heard about this. Go find the book I’d like to read up on it.
Well of course, which is why I defined society “in the broadest definition of the term.” Very, very few humans will reject society of any kind outright. among other things, it’s long-term survival-positive. People disgusted with their own society find another to join – or construct their own.
Take the Punk subculture. It’s constructed heavily around a nihilistic view of mainstream society. Yet it has it’s own set of social expectations, it’s own symbolic forms of communication, it’s own idea of acceptable and unacceptable. Punks, dissatisfied with their first society, simply build another.
Kind of like a herd instinct?
I wasn’t trying to use fire as an example of human instinct, I was using it as a counterexample to the argument that animals can’t overcome instinct. A wolf, for instance, has an instinctual fear of fire, but that instinct can be overcome through learning.
I suppose a more complex version of a herd instinct – the next step up, if you will. In the same way that the capacity for language is a step up from a “call system.”
If matt_mcl finds this thread (I hope!), maybe he’ll share with us Noam Chomsky’s theories of a “grammar instinct” – that certain basic rules of grammar are hardwired into the brain. We’ve had some interesting discussions about that one, and while I’m not entirely convinced, he does make a good argument.
Oh, lord, I thought I’d escaped this one for the summer 
Short statement of the grammar instinct is that children learn the grammar of their language (we’re talking descriptive grammar here, not the split-infinitive stuff) so quickly, at such a young age, when they’re so incompetent at learning anything else, and so accurately, that our ability to learn language constitutes an instinct. One theory is that our brain is structured in such a way as to cause the child to process linguistic input in such a way as to efficiently extract the relevant grammatical principles from it, all the while quickly acquiring vocabulary items.
Although Chomsky is practically a deity in the North American linguistics community, to hear my professors tell it, there are some thinkers who regard the question as not yet settled. I did a presentation on this for my lx theory class, and I’ll be happy to look it up when I get home from Spain.
In the meantime, I’ll refer you to the book I used, What’s Within? Nativism Reconsidered by Fiona Cowie (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999) for one opposing point of view (she basically says she thinks that Chomsky’s probably right but it’s not been proven yet, just persuasively argued).
A little off-topic here, but when using a dictionary authority, the term Webster’s is meaningless today. The name Webster’s has not been a proprietary term for many decades now, and any dictionary maker, no matter how bad, can so label a dictionary.
The true heir to Webster’s is the Merriam-Webster dictionary.