Instinctive Acts: Origin and Definition | Psychology

After reading this article you will learn about Instinctive Acts:- 1. The Origin of Instinct 2. Definition of Instinctive Acts 3. Types.

The Origin of Instinct:

Psychologists hold different views about the origin of instincts. Wundt advocates the theory of lapsed intelligence and holds that instinctive actions are racial habits.

They were originally intelligent adaptive acts, but through repetition in course or generations they became automatic, the element of intelligence having lapsed as unnecessary. Instincts are organically fixed ancestral habits. They have been transmitted to the latter generations as instinct.

But this theory is not tenable for the following reasons. First, this theory assumes that the ancestors of the present generations of animals had greater intelligence. This is not warranted by experience. Secondly, it assumes that acquired characteristics can be transmitted by heredity. The modern biologists do not accept this view.

Herbert Spencer advocates the compound reflex theory and holds that an instinctive act is a compound reflex or a chain of reflexes. It is an inherited coordination of reflexes. Many reflex actions were combined together fortuitously; some of them were combined into complex actions which were adapted to ends benefi­cial to the individual or the race.

These useful actions survived and were transmitted to succeeding generations. These are called instincts. The principle of natural selection weeded out the useless complex actions. This is the mechanical theory of the origin of instincts.

The compound reflex theory is objectionable for the following reasons. First, this theory leaves too much to chance. It cannot explain how groups of reflex actions could have been slowly built up, when only the final act made the chain really useful.

Secondly, this theory cannot account for the unity of an instinctive act. There is a persisting tendency in an instinctive act due to continuity of interest. An interest cannot be regarded as a fortuitous combina­tion of many isolated reflexes.

Baldwin holds that an organism may succeed in surviving and leaving offspring by selecting certain acts of accommodation, with or without conscious direction, and that these acts are permanently imbedded in the organism. This is a biological theory of the origin of instincts.

This theory is free from the defects of the first two theories. But still it is difficult to comprehend how the organism can select one type of act rather than another in order to survive and leave offspring. There seems to be subjective selection here.

An instinctive act involves prospective attention, selection of means, consciousness of proximate ends, and appreciation of success and failure. Hence a biological theory of organic selection cannot account for instincts which are concrete psychical acts.

Many recent psychologists consider the theories of instincts to be invalid and out of date. The term ‘instinct’ is an invalid construct or concept. There is no empirical evidence that instincts are innate and hereditary tendencies to perform certain types of actions. Theories of instincts are now-a-days replaced by theories of motivation.

Definition of Instinctive Acts:

Instinct may be defined as the innate tendency to perform a complex action pattern adapted to the biological end of self- preservation or race-preservation, prompted probably by a core emotional excitement, but without any explicit idea of the ultimate end, in response to a total situation. An instinctive act is not a purely biological act.

It is a psychical act. It is not simply an inherited arrangement of nervous acts, but is a mental process with its three­fold aspect.

McDougall defines it as “an inherited or innate psycho­physical disposition which determines its possessor to perceive, and to pay attention to, objects of a certain class, to experience an emotional excitement of a particular quality upon perceiving such an object, and to act in regard to it in a particular manner, or, at least, to experience an impulse to such action.”

According to him, an instinct is a complete mental process—cognitive, affective and conative. Spiders spin their cobwebs.

A young chick is hatched in an incubator. As soon as it is born, it begins to walk about, peck at particles of food, and soon is able to take care of itself without any care of training from the mother. The female wasp of a certain species constructs a certain type of next and lays eggs in it.

It dies before its young ones are hatched from the eggs. And yet this specific type of nest is handed down from generation to generation. All these complex action patterns are neither learned by the indivi­duals nor imitated from the elders. They are innate or instinctive.

Instinctive acts are native behaviour. They are not acquired by the individual. They are not learned actions. They are neither voluntary actions not automatic imitations of other’s behaviour, nor habitual actions. They are not based on the individual’s exper­ience, but only on his native constitution or pre-organized pathways in the nervous system.

Instinctive acts involve an inherited disposition to attend to and perceive a specific class of objects. A bird has an inherited tendency to perceive dry leaves, grass, feathers, sticks, etc., to build its nest. A cat has an innate tendency to run after mice to satisfy its food-seeking instinct.

Instinctive acts have a core of emotional excitement. The instinct to fly at the sight of a dangerous object has the emotion of fear as its affective aspect. The instinct of combat has the emotion of anger in its core. McDougall lays stress on this aspect of an instinct.

Instinctive acts are complex action patterns. They are a long and complicated series of acts adapted to one another as means and ends. A reflex is a simple response. But an instinct is a complex response. A reflex is a local response of a part of the organism to a simple stimulus. But an instinct is a response of the whole organism or a part of it to complex stimuli, or a total situation.

Migratory birds migrate instinctively from a cold country to a warm region. Their instinctive act is a response of the organism to a total situation. The bird’s wooing, mating, building a nest, laying eggs, hatching them, searching for food, taking care of the brood, etc., are complex responses of the whole organism to a total situation.

Instinctive acts involve activities lasting over a prolonged period of time. A reflex act (e. g., a pupillary reflex) is an immediate response. But an instinctive act may last for a long period of time. A bird collects materials, carries them to the chosen place, assembles them, and builds its nest for a number of days. Such innate activity continuing for a long period of time is one distinguishing charac­teristic of an instinct.

Woodworth points out that in every instinctive action there is a persisting tendency set up by a given situation and directed towards a result which cannot be instantly accomplished. There is a nesting fit in the mother bird which persists until the next is complete.

It has a hatching fit at the sight of a nestful of eggs and periodically hatches them until the young ones come out. This persisting tendency unifies the different acts in an instinctive action which is not a mere chain of reflexes.

Instinctive acts are adapted to a biological end. Some instincts are adapted to self-preservation. Instinct of flight, instinct of combat, food-seeking instinct, etc., are of this type. Other instincts are adapted to lace-preservation. – The sex instinct, the maternal instinct, etc., are of this type. But the instinctive acts are not con­sciously adapted to these ends.

There is no dim or clear consciousness of these ultimate ends in instinctive acts. But Stout rightly observes that instinctive acts involve consciousness of proximate ends, though not of the ultimate ends. The bird has not the idea of laying of eggs in view in building a nest.

But it is conscious of the proximate ends. It is conscious of the material of next building and their arrange­ment. Woodworth also holds the same view. The bird is conscious of the performance of a particular act of the accomplishment of a particular result.

Stout points out that instinctive act, unlike reflex acts, are marked by ‘persistency with varied effort.’ A solitary wasp often fails to drag its prey such as a spider or a cockroach into its hole; but it goes on trying various methods such as squeezing, twisting and turning the prey till it succeeds at last. An instinctive act is modified by experience.

Instinctive actions have been characterized by many ‘con­temporary psychologists’ as ‘unlearned actions’.

(i) Instinctive Acts and Reflex Act:

Both are non-voluntary—they do not involve volition. Both are innate or hereditary. They are not learned reactions. This is the similarity between them, but

They differ from each other in important respects:

(a) The typical reflex is a simple momentary response, while an instinctive act is a complicated series of responses lasting for a long period of time. A reflex act is a prompt reaction. It is an immediate response followed by a stimulus. You see a dazzling light, and your eyes are closed at once.

But an instinctive act is not an immediate response to a stimulus. The construction of a beehive takes a long period of time. A nest is built by a bird during a length of time. Thus, instinctive acts are not momentary acts.

(b) A reflex is a single local response, while an instinctive act is a complex series of many responses of the whole organism or a large part of it.

(c) Instinctive acts are responses to a total situation on the part of the organism as a whole. A reflex is a response to a single stimulus, while an instinctive act is a motor response to a complex situation. A reflex act is not adapted to a distant end, viz., self-preservation or race-preservation.

(d) A sensation reflex is preceded by the sensation produced by a sensory stimulation and followed by the consciousness of the act. But it is not consciously adapted to the end. It is not guided by the prevision of the end.

An instinctive act does not involve consciousness of the ultimate end; but it involves consciousness of proximate ends and particular acts performed. Physiological reflexes are essentially unconscious. Some reflexes are unconscious reactions, while instinctive acts are conscious reactions.

(e) Instinctive acts, unlike reflex acts, are marked by persistency with varied effort. They are more variable—more adapted to changing conditions—than reflex actions. They are not characterized by rigid uniformity as they were supposed to be.

A beetle carries a dung-ball and comes across a pit. It makes a slope to carry it across the pit. Instinctive acts, unlike reflexes, are modified by experience. If they lead to agreeable results, they are repeated and ingrained as a habit. If they lead to painful consequences, they are inhibited.

(f) Instinctive acts involve the co-operation of intelligence, including interest, attention, variation of behaviour, and learning by experience as Stout points out. But reflex acts do not involve these mental factors.

(ii) Instinctive Acts as Modified:

Instincts are not entirely fixed but plastic. They are modified by experience, habit and intelligence.

Angell avers that experience acts upon instincts in two opposite directions:

(a) If the first expression of an instinct happens to be painful and injurious, the instinctive act may be either temporarily or permanently, inhibited. Thus, chicks, which have an instinctive tendency to peck at food, inhibit this tendency when bad-tasting food is given them.

(b) On the other hand, if the instinctive act is successful and produces pleasure, it tends to be repeated and fixed as a habit. Memory modifies instinctive acts. They are modified by the memory of past experiences of pleasant or painful consequences. Thus instinctive acts are modified by experience.

James avers that instincts are restricted by habit. When objects of a certain class evoke a certain kind of instinctive reaction, the animal often becomes partial to the first specimen of the class on which it has reacted and will not afterwards react to any other specimen.

The rabbit will deposit its dung in the same corner; the bird makes its next in the same tree. A habit once grafted on an instinctive tendency, restricts the range of the tendency itself, and keeps the animal from reacting to any but the habitual objects.

McDougall avers that instinctive acts are modified also by the new environment. They are so modified by intelligence to cope with the new conditions in the environment. Bees so modify their hive structure as to overcome new obstacles. If there are obstacles in the instinctive act of nest-building, the bird can overcome them by intelligent acts and complete the nest.

(iii) Instinct and Intelligence:

Instinctive acts were formerly supposed to be blind, fixed and invariable. But the modern psychologists regard them as modifiable and variable. The characteristics of instinctive acts considered above clearly show that instincts are not blind.

We call attention to the following points again:

(a) McDougall defines a instinctive act as a concrete mental process involving cognition, emotion and condition. It involves an instinctive tendency to attend to and perceive a specific class of objects, an emotional excitement, and a tendency to act in a particular manner. It is a psychical act, and not a merely biological act.

(b) An instinctive act is conscious. It involves dim consciousness of the proximate end and clear consciousness of the means. It does not involve consciousness of the remote end or the ultimate result. There is a certain amount of foresight in an instinctive act.

(c) There is a persisting tendency in an instinctive act. This depends upon continuity of interest.

(d) There is persistence with varied effort in an instinctive action. This shows that there, is some consciousness of success and failure in an instinctive action. It involves prospective attention, appreciation or relative success and failure, and satisfaction and dissatisfaction.

Instinctive acts are partly fixed or invariable and partly plastic or modifiable. They are modified by experience, habit, and the new environment. Therefore instincts are not blind and invariable.

There are two important marks of intelligence. First, we profit by past experience. Secondly, we react in a new manner to a novel situation. Instincts are modified by past experience. They are modified by new existences in the environment. Thus instincts are largely modified by intelligence in human beings. There are no pure instincts in men.

They have a large number of modified instincts. McDougall holds that an instinctive action is partly fixed and invariable and partly fluid and plastic. As plastic, it is modified by experience, habit and intelligence. Every instinctive action is modified by intelligence. There is partial novelty of adjustment in every instinctive action. It is partly modified by intelligence.

Types of Instincts Acts:

(i) Nutritive Instincts:

It include all unlearned activities which are conducive to the maintenance of life of the individual such as hunting, acquisitiveness, food-seeking, eating etc.

(ii) Reproductive Instincts:

It include all unlearned activities which are necessary for the preservation of the species such as courtship, mating, the maternal instinct, etc.

(iii) Defensive Instincts:

It included flight, secretiveness, bashfulness of modesty, constructiveness, the building of homes for protection, etc.

(iv) Aggressive Instincts:

It include all fighting and self-assertive instincts.

(v) Social Instincts:

It include gre­garious instinct, sociability, sympathy, jealousy, envy, shyness, emulation, etc. These are called forth solely by the presence of others of our kind.

McDougall’s list of instinct has been discussed in connection with his theory of emotion. Woodworth calls instinctive activities ‘unlearned motives’.

They are the organic needs e.g., hunger, thirst, fatigue, the sex motive, the escape motive, fighting, explora­tion, manipulation, social motives, self-assertion and submission. They can be classified under unlearned motives for security, pleasure, acquaintance, mastery and achievement.