instinct

Bearer and response family

Record the bearer, reference population, and operational boundaries of the proposed action tendency.

1. Which organism or population is said to have this instinct, and at which developmental stages? definition
2. Which observable actions count as expressions of this tendency, and which similar actions do not? boundary

Origin and alternatives

Record the attribution's source, evidential limits, and plausible competing explanations.

1. Who attributed the tendency to instinct, using which observations and definition? provenance
2. What evidence distinguishes this attribution from habit, reflex, intuition, imitation, or deliberate strategy? boundary
3. Which observation would weaken or overturn the instinct attribution? measurement

Cue specificity

Record which features of an encounter are associated with expression and which distinctions remain untested.

1. Which sensory or situational features precede expression, and how were they distinguished from background context? measurement
2. Do similar but irrelevant cues elicit the same tendency, and under what conditions? boundary

Readiness and competing tendencies

Record associations between expression, internal state, and competing action tendencies without assuming causation.

1. Which observed internal states or life-stage conditions accompany increased or reduced responsiveness? measurement
2. When another tendency competes for expression, what happens to this one? measurement

Action sequence and variation

Record the recurring response pattern while allowing alternative routes and incomplete expressions.

1. What marks onset, progression, and termination of an expression episode? definition
2. Which components recur across eligible observations, and which vary with context? measurement

Interpreting missing expression

Record whether non-expression could reflect missing cues, inhibition, physical inability, or inadequate observation.

1. When expression is absent, were eliciting conditions present and observation sufficient to detect a response? measurement
2. What evidence separates lack of the disposition from inhibition, interruption, or inability to act? boundary

Onset and prior exposure

Record when expression first appeared and what is actually known about preceding experience.

1. When was the tendency first observed relative to maturation and opportunities to perform the action? measurement
2. Which relevant exposures, demonstrations, or reinforcements preceded that observation, and which histories are unknown? provenance

Persistence and modification

Record what remains stable and what changes after repeated encounters or learning opportunities.

1. After relevant experience, do eliciting cues, response frequency, or action sequences change? measurement
2. What evidence separates experience-related change from maturation, temporary state changes, or observation differences? boundary

Outcomes and function claims

Record present consequences and identify claims about biological function as separately evidenced interpretations.

1. What benefits, costs, or harms have been observed when this tendency is expressed in the current setting? measurement
2. Which proposed functions have supporting evidence, and which remain hypotheses inferred from the behaviour? provenance

Accommodation and intervention

Record evidence for cue changes, redirection, interruption, or accommodation, together with effects on the bearer.

1. Which changes to cues, surroundings, or available actions have altered expression, with what duration and consequences? measurement
2. What response is justified by the evidence, the bearer's welfare or consent where applicable, and the agent's authority? action
3. What observation should cause the agent to stop or revise an attempted intervention? action

Kinds and varieties

Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.

• Fixed action pattern (Lorenzian Instinkthandlung): a relatively invariant, whole-animal motor programme that, once released, runs toward completion
• Modal action pattern: the later ethological revision of the fixed action pattern, allowing measurable within-species variation while remaining species-typical
• Appetitive phase: variable searching or orienting behaviour that brings the animal into contact with the releaser
• Consummatory act: the terminal, more stereotyped act that ends an instinctive sequence
• Parental and nest-care instincts (egg retrieval, chick begging, hive hygiene)
• Courtship and sexual instincts
• Territorial and defensive instincts
• Foraging and predatory instincts

1. Which of these kinds and varieties hold for the sense of instinct this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance

Real-world use

Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.

• Field and lab ethology: dummy stimuli (red belly models, bill spots, giant eggs) are used to map sign stimuli and record whether a species-typical sequence is released.
• Classic demonstrations still taught and replicated: greylag goose egg-rolling, herring-gull chick pecking, three-spined stickleback territorial attack, honeybee corpse removal to oleic acid, toad/frog tongue-flick prey capture.
• Livestock, zoo, and laboratory husbandry: facilities are judged partly by whether animals can perform species-typical nesting, foraging, flocking, or courtship sequences.
• Brood-parasite and pest systems: hosts' parental sequences are exploited (for example by cuckoos) because the releaser, not a learned check of offspring identity, drives feeding.
• Clinical writing still uses instinct beside drive and reflex when discussing fear, attachment, and addiction, though the folk sense is looser than the ethological one.

1. Which of these real-world use hold for the sense of instinct this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance

Typical measurements

Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.

• Latency from sign stimulus to onset of the motor sequence - sub-second to a few seconds for classic releasers - s
• Duration of a consummatory fixed or modal action pattern - seconds to a few minutes (egg-rolling and bill-pecking bouts sit at the short end) - s
• Sequence completion after the releasing object is removed mid-act - typically continues to the end of the motor programme - proportion of sequence completed
• Selectivity of the releaser - often a simple feature (a red patch, oleic acid, a moving spot) is sufficient; supernormal dummies can outrank the natural object - response rate to dummy versus natural stimulus

1. Which of these typical measurements hold for the sense of instinct this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance

Failure modes and hazards

Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.

• The sequence continues after the object is gone (egg removed under the goose's bill), wasting time and exposing the animal.
• Supernormal stimuli hijack the releasing mechanism: oversized eggs, dummy beaks, or a red van triggering stickleback attack.
• Vacuum activity: the act fires with no adequate stimulus when internal readiness is high.
• Brood parasites and similar exploiters lock onto parental or feeding instincts that lack an identity check.
• Captivity blocks the appetitive search or the consummatory act, producing stereotypies and other abnormal behaviour.
• Imprinting on the wrong object channels later instinctive social and sexual behaviour toward an inappropriate target.
• Folk over-attribution of 'instinct' (especially 'maternal instinct') can hide learning, pathology, or cultural practice and block intervention.

1. Which of these failure modes and hazards hold for the sense of instinct this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance

Regional variation

Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.

• German technical usage splits Instinkt (stereotyped, unlearned response close to a complex reflex) from Trieb (urge or drive); English translations of Freud rendered Trieb as 'instinct', which still confuses psychology with ethology.
• Mid-twentieth-century European ethology kept instinct as a research object (Lorenz, Tinbergen), while much North American comparative psychology treated the word as empty and explained the same acts by learning.
• Popular speech in many languages treats 'survival instinct' and 'maternal instinct' as inner feelings; research usage treats them as species-typical action patterns, or rejects the labels.

1. Which of these regional variation hold for the sense of instinct this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance

Neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart

Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.

• reflex - A reflex is a short, local sensorimotor arc involving specific muscles; an instinct is a more complex, whole-animal sequence. Test: complexity and whether the entire body is recruited in a species-typical order.
• drive (Trieb) - Drive is an internal motivational push (onset often hormonal or homeostatic) whose object can vary; instinct in the ethological sense is the inherited pattern itself. Test: whether you are measuring an urge state or a stereotyped motor programme released by a sign stimulus.
• learned behaviour / habit - Learned acts depend on the individual's experience and vary within the species; instinctive sequences appear in typical form without that training, though experience can later modify them. Test: deprivation or isolation rearing - if the sequence is intact on first opportunity, it is not a habit.
• taxis - A taxis is oriented locomotion at a defined angle to a stimulus gradient, not a centrally patterned action sequence. Test: does the animal steer relative to a gradient, or run a fixed motor programme?
• innate releasing mechanism - The IRM is the sensory filter that detects the sign stimulus; instinct names the behaviour that then occurs. Test: lesion or dummy-stimulus work that blocks detection while leaving the motor pattern executable, or the reverse.
• imprinting - Imprinting is rapid learning gated by a sensitive period, which then aims later instinctive social or sexual behaviour; it is not the instinctive act. Test: whether the phenomenon is an irreversible preference acquired in a brief window, or a motor sequence released by a current stimulus.
• species-typical behaviour - Broader: includes instinctive acts and also behaviours that are typical because they are socially transmitted. Test: whether isolation-reared animals still produce the act.

1. Which of these neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart hold for the sense of instinct this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance