Kimberly J. Workinger
What exactly is an instinct? If some behaviors are physical manifestations of instincts, understanding what an instinct is and how they evolved is a good first step to understanding the behavior of animals. An instinct is a behavior that animals exhibit independent of the wide range of learning and experiences of different individuals. Some times referred to as “hard-wiring”, instinct is the result of brain physiology. This is supported by Irenaus Eibl-Eibesfeldt who wrote in his book Ethology- the Biology of Behavior that “Innate behavior patterns may already be fully functional at the time of hatching or birth”. Often developed during critical periods, instinctual behaviors have evolved over evolutionary time to ensure the survival and reproduction of that species. Other behaviors evolve or are learned and perfected over an individual’s life time. The goal is the same, to survive and to reproduce.
Instinctive behaviors have been studied for some time. One such study examined the instinctive behaviors of newborn primates. In the early 1960’s a study was done with a baby Rhesus monkey abandoned by its mother shortly after birth. Researchers placed the baby in a room with two “mothers”. One of the surrogate mothers was made of wire and had no distinguishing features of a mother except that it had a bottle attached to it containing milk. The second wire mother had a soft blanket and a “face” on it. In a 24-hour span of time, the baby stayed on the soft mother the overwhelming majority of the time even though it had nothing to offer in the way of food. Instinctually, the baby monkey was drawn to the surrogate that could provide the warmth of what it thought was a mother.
Birds offer another example of instinctual behavior. The well known animal behaviorist Konrad Lorenz has been studying animals of all types including the Graylag Goose. Instinctively, the Graylag Goose and birds in general, know that upon hatching, they are looking for their mother. She is a being that is larger than they are within certain parameters and that she provides food. This is where the instinct stops and the learning begins. They learn that the first being they are in contact with who meets these criteria must be the mother. Imprinting occurs at this point. By moving slowly and crouching close to the ground Konrad Lorenz imprinted the geese on himself by being the first slow moving creature larger than themselves that they encountered. While the imprinting is a phenomenon that is most often seen in the world of birds and not to the companion animals that students of this class will be working with it is associated with instinctive behaviors of reproduction and nurturing.
The instinct part of that scenario seems to end at the “knowing” that the first relatively large being is the mother. The learned part seems to come when the newly hatched chick identifies or learns the exact shape and features of the object it will act towards as a parent. “Imprinting occurs at a critical period in development”. (Goldsmith and Zimmerman) It is important to note that the critical period for all behaviors is not always at birth. Critical development periods occur in most animals and are often rather short periods of time.