Concept in Definition ABC

Related to psychic issues but above all to biological spheres, instinct is the term used for name those guidelines or behaviors that involve a reaction to certain situations of greater or lesser urgency. These behaviors are very characteristic of the animal and in many ways are seen as the predominance of the wild character of the animal. However, they are also present in humans and, although much more neutralized than in animals, these instinctive behaviors are what allow in a certain sense the evolution and adaptation of the human being to different realities.

From a biological point of view, instinct is the immediate reaction to certain stimuli. In this sense, acting from instinct means, for example, escaping from a danger, seek protection or seek to protect our close ones, seek to satisfy certain needs, etc. For the biological currents, the instinct in the human being can be given in two different ways: the instinct to survival, the one that leads us to adapt to different realities in order to meet basic needs, and the instinct of

reproduction, the one that aims to make the species last above all things.

Instinct is primarily hereditary and is not something that can be learn. In this way, it is common to the entire species and does not vary according to the education that each individual receives, to the lifestyle that he leads or to the resources with whom I have to live. As its basic objective is the adaptation to a new complex and different reality, the instinct it is, in biological terms, that which allows the survival and evolution of the species in question.

Many social theories and experts from the branches of anthropology, the psychology and the sociology, argue that instinct in humans can be considered almost non-existent or null. This is explained through the fact that the human being is the only living being that interacts in a cultural environment in which biological and 'wild' reactions are neutralized or appeased. In such a way, these currents explain that today it would be impossible for a defenseless human being to resort to his instinct to original survival with the aim of surviving in inhospitable environments due to the human race having lost contact with this type of reactions.

Themes in Instinct