The ABC of human instincts

There is a lot of talk about human instincts, but sometimes we don’t know what exactly we mean by that. It is a term borrowed from biology that reminds us that, ultimately, we are a branch of mammals.. We know that much of that wild animal is still alive in us.

However, some peculiarities also appear that distance us from that biological world. We have often heard about human survival instincts. and, despite this, we know that suicide is a daily reality in today’s world. Sexual instincts are also mentioned and, at the same time, we are informed of data on impotence or other dysfunctions.

As we see, the topic of human instincts is not simply exhausted in the biological. There are a whole series of cultural vectors and symbolic that influence all this. In fact, there are also currents of thought that do not speak of instincts, but of drives. Let’s look at this in greater detail.

Biological theory and human instincts

From the biological point of view, instincts are behavioral patterns that have the characteristics of being hereditary and common to the entire species. The reason for these instincts is adaptation and they are programmed in the brain. . They allow us to protect and preserve ourselves. They correspond to automatic or immediate reactions.

The biological theory states that We have basic instincts and these are:

Survival instinct. It corresponds to all the basic behaviors that allow us to preserve life and health. Among them are the avoidance of danger, food, seeking shelter, etc.Reproduction instinct. It has to do with the preservation of the species and basically refers to reproductive sexuality.Instinct for personal fulfillment. Although there is no total consensus on this point, the majority of positivist psychologists point out that human beings have an innate need to find meaning for themselves.Care instinct. It refers to the instinct to care for others, such as children or the helpless. It is part of the biological social behavior of the human being.

These would be basic human instincts. However, this approach fails to explain why, for example, a person stops eating because they feel very obese, without being so. This would go against the automatism that instincts imply.

Components of basic instincts

As they are impulses with a strong influence of genes, animal instincts have components directly related to the nervous functioning of the organism. Thus, consider instinct as the integration of the forces that compose it:

Cognitive component: the impulse to pay attention to a certain stimulus.emotional component: the emotion that arises from the experience of the stimulus.Conative or action component: impulse to perform some action related to the emotions that the stimulus in question has aroused.

The theory of drives

Sigmund Freud stated that In the human being, instincts as such are not present, but rather species-specific forces which he called drives.. These drives are psychic impulses, which are composed of a state of excitement and physical tension.

The drive seeks to discharge or suppress that state of tension. To do this, look for an object that allows you to get rid of it.. Thus, for example, hunger would correspond to the drive and food to the object that allows said drive to be released. We return to the question: why then do some people, for example, not eat? Freud proposes that not all human impulses are benign.

For Freud there are two basic drives: eros and tanathos. The eros drive includes all impulses related to self-preservation and sexuality. The tanathos corresponds to the death drive and includes violent, chaotic, disintegrating impulses and the desire to return to the inanimate state. Drives do not seek to satisfy immediate needs, but rather the mental representation of them.

Instinct from 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

Instinct as intuition is understood as a way of knowing or acting based on feelings, sensations and motivations, whether bodily or cognitive, but which do not come from calm analysis, but rather seem to burst in suddenly.

Maslow’s instinct

Maslow believed that all human beings have essentially vital needs. for the maintenance of health, including love or esteem. He began to popularize terms like desire or motivation to symbolize those types of instincts or internal needs of each of us, stating that these needs were a kind of genetically built instincts in all of us.

Weisinger’s modern instinct

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.

Other theories

There are also other theories about human instincts, which aim to establish a middle point between the biological theory and the theory of drives.. Basically, they categorize impulses in a different way, taking into account aspects of both theories.

According to these approaches, human instincts are divided into:

Vital instincts. They include the sexual instinct, the instinct of fight and flight and are generally equivalent to the instinct of survival.Instincts of pleasure. Their objective is to provide the highest degree of well-being to human beings and they are a refinement of human survival instincts. For example, you don’t just drink water to survive, but flavors are added to it.Social instincts. They understand the needs for company, power, prestige and property.Cultural instincts. They include the desire to know, research, artistic inclinations, etc.

Popularly, there is also talk of other human instincts such as the maternal instinct, by which women supposedly always love children. Also the instinct of repulsion or rejection of what disgusts us. Which of all these theories about human instincts is correct? There is no definitive agreement on this.

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