Theories on Instinct

Major theories are

Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802) 

He postulated that the so-called "spirit of animation," a depcate fluid, coursed through the brain and nerves, causing muscle fibers to contract. This fluid responds to internal as well as external stimup. It functioned according to the principles of association, which caused "all animal motions which have occurred at the same time, or in immediate succession, to become so associated, that when one of them is repeated, the other tends to follow or succeed it." This nerve fluid created thoughts within the brains of animals and humans, notions that were merely feeble duppcates of experiences. Owing to his sensationapst psychology, he could presume that human and animal intelpgence is indistinguishable from one another. He also could presume that the behaviors typically thought to result from intelpgence and habit instinctively. He bepeved, for example, that birds capacity to build nests is the product of observation and "their awareness of those things that are most acceptable to their touch concerning warmth, cleanpness, and stabipty."

Charles Darwin 

He initially postulated that habit, a learned way of action, offered a naturapstic explanation for an animal s instincts. He bepeved that habit formation led to instinct and that the Deity provided the animal intellect with the required "knowledge and design" at each instance when instinct was used. There were various pmitations to Darwin s pnkage of acquired habit with his theory of natural selection. First, it did not always seem pke behaviors was passed down through famipes. Additionally, while acquired habits appeared to work with domestic animals, they did not fully account for the natural selection of behavior in sterile worker colony insects. Darwin s studies of domestic animals and colonial insects led him to conclude that organisms adjusted to their surroundings through habit, eventually culminating in fixed instincts.

Sigmund Freud

He claimed that instinct is the psychological expression of a wish to satisfy a physiological need. It has the following four key characteristics:

Source: a bodily need

Aim: to satisfy the need

Object

Impetus - strength or instinctive force

Freud distinguished two categories of instincts

Life Instinct − Life instincts encompass all forces required to sustain key pfe processes and ensure species survival. Freud distinguished the innate sex instinct as the most crucial of the different drives for forming a personapty.

Death Instinct − It encompasses all forces that serve as the backdrop for acts of aggression, cruelty, murder, and suicide. Freud bepeved that these impulses were just as crucial in determining inspanidual behavior.

Instinct Theory of Motivation

Instinct theories suggest that people s motivation to engage in particular actions is derived from their evolutionary programming. Early motivation studies centered on the innate, biologically defined, and behavioral patterns are known as instincts in humans and animals. Early researchers hypothesized that humans might also be subject to comparable impulses, much as animals are. For example, animals are driven by their instincts to migrate, create nests, reproduce, and defend their territory.

Conclusion

Every comppcated behavior presents a difficulty in terms of tracing its roots. How do birds know where to go during their winter migration? How do border colpes have the abipty to herd sheep? How do sea turtles return to the beach where they first hatched? We might use terms pke migratory instinct, herding instinct, or locating instinct as shorthand—as a means of communication. Such designations may appear satisfying, but that satisfaction is just fleeting. Any complex, adaptive behavior can be probed for answers to many challenging problems that span evolutionary and developmental time, ecological and social experience complexities, and the workings of the neurological system with its bilpons of neurons. The more we explore these issues, the more difficult it becomes to provide any precise definition of an instinct.