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instinct
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Foraging is an example of an instinct driven by impulses serving specific biological functions. Charles Darwin Sigmund Freud Konrad Lorenz Male three-spined stickleback fish (Gasterosteus aculeatus) display instinctive territorial defense behaviour against trespassing males, who may be rivals for reproductive mates. European toad mandrill Mating behaviour in animals is instinctive. The courtship displays of animals such as the male frigate bird (Fregata minor) are driven by instinct. caribou
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Foraging is an example of an instinct driven by impulses serving specific biological functions.
Foraging is an example of an instinct driven by impulses serving specific biological functions.

instinct

behavior
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Also known as: innate behaviour
Written by
Colin Beer
Professor of Psychology, Rutgers University, Newark, New Jersey
Colin Beer
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Alfred Adler

instinct, an inborn impulse or motivation to action typically performed in response to specific external stimuli. Today instinct is generally described as a stereotyped, apparently unlearned, genetically determined behaviour pattern. In the past the term instinct has stood for a number of distinct conceptions about animal behaviour. For example, Alexander Jamieson, in the first volume of his A Dictionary of Mechanical Science, Arts, Manufactures, and Miscellaneous Knowledge (1829), defined the term instinct as “an appellation given to the sagacity and natural inclinations of brutes, which supplies the place of reason in mankind.” As a rough rendering of what the term ...(100 of 5516 words)

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