Freud, early in his studies, took the biological view that there are two basic instinctive forces governing life: self-preservation and reproduction.
With the publication of his book "Beyond the Pleasure Principle" in 1920, Freud concluded that all instincts fall into one of two major classes: life drives and death drives—later dubbed Eros and Thanatos by other psychologists.
Humans all have three main survival instincts: Self-Preservation, Sexual, and Social. Our enneagram type is a strategy used to meet the needs of these three instinctual drives. Our personality tends to have an imbalance with the three rather than use them equally.
In his 1920 book Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Sigmund Freud applied the concept of Eros to psychoanalysis. He referred to Eros as the life instinct, which include sexual instincts, the drive to live, and basic instinctual impulses such as thirst and hunger. Its counterpart is Thanatos, which is the death instinct.
1. Seeking – The seeking instinct is the instinct within all humans that make us want to explore. It's built into us because it has evolutionary benefits: by seeking, we find food, shelter, and water. It helps us sustain ourselves.
"Human beings have survived as a species because we have evolved the capacities to care for those in need and to cooperate. As Darwin long ago surmised, sympathy is our strongest instinct."
It became the catch-all explanation for those adaptive and complex abilities that do not obviously result from learning or experience. Today, various animals are said to possess a survival instinct, migratory instinct, herding instinct, maternal instinct, or language instinct.
The three Instincts are Self-Preservation, Sexual, and Social. Self-Preservation is about conserving energy, Sexual about releasing energy, and Social about receiving energy from others.
There are three clusters of biological drives and instincts: self-preservation, one-on-one bonding (or sexual), and social relating. These primal forces are rooted in our physical body and are innate drives to survive, bond, and belong, influencing our behavior and decision-making processes.
The Power of Instinctive Behaviors
Examples of this include a dog shaking after it gets wet, a sea turtle seeking out the ocean after hatching, or a bird migrating before the winter season. In humans, many reflexes are examples of instinctive behaviors.
Freud's theory says that two powers drive human behavior. First, there are the life instincts – Eros, which cause us to seek pleasure. Second, there are the death instincts – Thanatos, where he theorized that these were indications of our impulses towards self-destruction or damage that we may be unaware of.
Jung identified five prominent groups of instinctive factors: creativity, reflection, activity, sexuality and hunger. Hunger is a primary instinct of self-preservation, perhaps the most fundamental of all drives.
In psychology, the definition of the instinct theory of motivation refers to the concept that all humans are evolutionarily designed in a way that helps them survive. People are born with innate traits that allow them to behave naturally. These are instincts that drive a person's decisions and behaviors.
EXISTENCE: The Quest To Fulfilling Three Basic Human Instincts: Love, Life And Power. Hate, greed and selfishness do not motivate us to do, or not do. They are side-effects, or rather, the result of misunderstanding or mishandling of the three natural instincts of love, life and power.
The Biology and Evolution of Falling in Love
This interest is specifically to facilitate reproduction. He says that “Romantic love, is an instinctive part of human nature”.
According to Harvard Health Publishing, the flight or fight response evolved as a survival mechanism. When the human brain sensed danger, it triggered stress hormones that initiated physiological changes to prepare the body to either get away from the danger (flight) or fight it.
According to Freud, there are two classes of instincts: 1) Eros or the sexual instincts, which he later saw as compatible with the self-preservative instincts; and 2) Thanatos or the death-instinct, a natural desire to "re-establish a state of things that was disturbed by the emergence of life" ("Ego and the Id" 709).
Instinctive behaviors are innate abilities - they occur and are present from birth onward and are not learned behaviors. Reflexes are an example of instinctive behaviors. For birds, nest building, migration, and imprinting (automatically following mothers) are all instinctive behaviors.
These behaviors are generally innate and unlearned. William McDougall: 18 human instincts (parental, submission, curiosity, escape, reproduction, repulsion, self-assertiveness, jealousy…)
n. 1. an innate, species-specific biological force that impels an organism to do something, particularly to perform a certain act or respond in a certain manner to specific stimuli. See also hormic psychology.
Like all animals, humans have instincts, genetically hard-wired behaviors that enhance our ability to cope with vital environmental contingencies. Our innate fear of snakes is an example. Other instincts, including denial, revenge, tribal loyalty, greed and our urge to procreate, now threaten our very existence.
Freud's Aggression Instinct Theory Freud's view was that all human behavior originated from Eros, the life instinct that assists with reproduction; he later added Thanatos, the death instinct, to his theory. He believed that human aggressive behavior was necessary to human survival and reproduction.
Humans by birth have the natural instinct to survive. It is those best adapted to the environment that continue to survive and pass their characteristics, feelings, and behaviors to generations to come. The primal instincts of humans is to hunt and gather. This is used in means to survive.
According to Freud, the healthy person has his ego as the strongest part of his personality.