<Most of the dubious actions people are used to explaining by instincts - for example, procreation or self-preservation. However, as scientists have found out, humans do not have such rigid innate patterns of behavior as animals do. Our actions are largely the result of learning and experience, not a genetic program.
Blind instinct
When a cuckoo hatches in a warbler or warbler's nest, it usually does not resemble the other chicks either in color or size. Moreover, already on the 14th day of life, cuckoo cubs are almost three times more foster parents, but they seem to not see this and regularly feed the foundling with all the food they find.
The birds really do not notice anything, except for the wide open yellow mouth and the chick urge - the cry with which the cub begs for food. These stimuli awaken parental instinct in animals or, scientifically speaking, trigger a fixed set of actions. The bird will always and everywhere act according to a single and evolution-approved scheme - to feed the one who opened his mouth.
“Instinct is always genetically determined, that is, it is innate. For its development, no additional training is required, it is the same for all individuals of a given species - that is, it is species-typical. Instinct includes a need, a key stimulus, and a fixed set of actions. The latter consists of appetizing behavior - searching for and approaching the object of satisfying the need - and consumatory behavior - satisfying the need (killing prey, copulating, etc.). In accordance with this definition, instincts cannot be found in humans and higher animals in such a classical form. In the process of evolution, we have only one element of instinct left: an innate need,”explains Yekaterina Vinogradova, Associate Professor of the Department of Higher Nervous Activity and Psychophysiology of St. Petersburg State University, Candidate of Biological Sciences.
You can't do without a hint
Promotional video:
All animals, without exception, have inborn needs. But they satisfy them in different ways. Arthropods and insects prefer to completely trust their instincts. Therefore, for example, if from the mink of a road wasp (Pompilus plumbeus) a tarantula paralyzed by a bite intended for food for its offspring is pulled out and put next to it, then the insect will go in search of a new living spider, although it will see food lying nearby. The wasp will not be able to do anything, because this is not spelled out in its instinctive program of action.
But such a rigid pattern of behavior begins to blur even in fish. Research has shown that they have some idea of their own personality, and instincts lose their ideal accuracy. In birds, only the learning range can be considered innate. And among great apes and humans, instead of a clear program of action, there is only a pointer in which direction to move.
“I’m afraid that the line where instincts disappear cannot be drawn. Evolution is a continuous process. "Hard" instincts or ready-made universal programs begin to play a lesser role in the course of evolution. As the central nervous system develops, learning to adapt to changing conditions becomes more important. The body becomes more plastic”, - says Ekaterina Vinogradova.
As a result, we have only needs, and how to satisfy them, we can learn only from relatives. Even with regard to procreation (seemingly the most powerful innate need), great apes cannot do without outside help. So, among orangutans, whose cubs live with their mother for the first six years, it is customary to educate young people by demonstrating sexual intercourse. If the mother does not find a suitable male nearby, she can begin to mate with her cub herself.
As for a person, it is believed that without the slightest sexual education, the only way he can satisfy the innate need for procreation is masturbation.
Reflex or instinct
However, a person has some congenital programs, without which he cannot survive. All babies can find their mother's breasts by smell, open their mouths if they touch their lips, and firmly grab an adult's finger. However, scientists warn, this behavior cannot be called instinctive, it is innate unconditioned reflexes. And most of them disappear by the age of one. Further, human behavior is formed only through training and experience.
“The main difference is associated with the fact that an unconditioned reflex, regardless of need, is always realized when the receptive field is stimulated. Whether the child wants to eat or not, irritation of the receptors of the lips causes the sucking movement, irritation of the palm - the grasping movement. No matter how many times in a row you touch your lips or palm - ten, twenty, one hundred - the reflex will be realized. And the instinct “turns on” to the action of a stimulus only against the background of a need. Once the burrowing wasp dug a hole, laid eggs, brought food, sealed the mink and that's it, the second time the fixed set of actions will not be implemented. If a ram does not have a sexual need in early spring, then he does not have sexual behavior on the first heat in sheep, but only on the second, when, under the influence of the first heat, his sexual need did not turn on. Besides,the unconditioned reflex is much simpler to implement in comparison with instincts, it does not have an appetite and consumatory phase. This, by the way, sometimes leads to disputes whether raising eyebrows when greeting a good friend is an instinct,”Vinogradova emphasizes.
Indeed, discussions about the only officially recorded human instinct have not subsided for several decades. Austrian biologist Ireneus Eibl-Eibesfeldt showed that all people anywhere in the world, when they meet a person they like, involuntarily raise their eyebrows. It only lasts one-sixth of a second, but everyone does it. Even blind from birth - they respond to a pleasant voice.
But regarding Stephen Pinker's hypothesis that the species instinct of Homo sapiens is language, the position of specialists is unambiguous.
“The followers of Noam Chomsky (and Pinker refers to them. - Ed.) Are not biologists, not ethologists, but philologists. Therefore, they give the term "instinct" their own meaning. Everything depends on the definition. The definition given by biologists is clear: instinct does not require additional training. Therefore, language cannot be an instinct in any way. A specific feature is only the ability to acquire a language, but language acquisition is the result of learning,”the researcher believes.
Alfiya Enikeeva