lnstinct

This is a fixed reaction built into the organism so that a special situation will automatically elicit a special response. The response is pre-wired. It is as direct, automatic and unchanging as the illumination of a room if you switch on the light. The response is built into the organism just as the electric wires are built into a house. No learning is required.

Animals show instinct responses to situations which they could not possibly have encountered before. A particular black silhouette moved above naive nestlings will make them cower in fright because it suggests the shape of a hawk moving through the sky. Exactly the same shape moved backwards has no effect because it looks like a harmless swan.

Instincts are precise responses set off by precise situations. Young gulls open their mouths for food as soon as a beak-like shape with a red spot on it appears above them, because this is how the mother gull looks. A piece of wood bearing a red spot will produce the same response. This type of direct response has been beautifully worked out by Tinbergen.

Advantages

1. An instinct response is immediate and perfect and requires no learning at all.
2. An instinct response is predictable and its meaning does not change. This makes it useful for communicating with other animais.

Disadvantages

1. The instinct response is fixed and cannot be adjusted to suit the situation. Nor can it be abolished if the response is inappropriate.
2. The number of fixed inbuilt responses is limited so there is no way of coping with new situations for which there is no ready-made response.

EDWARD DE BONO. Practical Thinking. Penguin Books. New York, 1971.