(5) To head off the inevitable collapse, we can no longer wait and merely react but we must become proactive. Many of the instincts remain an evolutionary mystery. It’s that gut reaction that tells you not to trust someone, or that feeling that tells you something isn’t right.
For this article I have focused on reflexes in adults and left out the common primitive reflexes. The biological theory of human instincts. Throughout our lives, we are ruled by our basic instincts. The purpose of these instincts is to help people adapt to their environments. (4) We must make a choice between quantity and quality of human life. Compounding the problem is that we’ve all inherited exquisite skills for self-deception. Whether we act on them or not is beside the point. There are a couple more of human needs that develop on the top of the basic instincts: The emotional need to belong to some social group – family, friends, intimacy – and the bigger groups – clubs, Church, Facebook groups, sport teams etc. The human brain not only distorts perception and memory; it then uses its extraordinary powers to rationalize or justify the distortion. According to the Enneagram of personality, there are three basic instincts that people have and that they rely upon, and they can make us act in different ways. This means we, as human beings, enjoy the company of others. Well, human beings are born with three things psychologically: a fear of loud noises, phonophobia, a fear of falling, basophobia, and an IQ score. New York: Henry Holt and Company, (1906): 294-309. We still have the same fears and desires as our ancestors, but now those instincts are out of sync with life conditions. From a biological standpoint, human instincts are blueprints for behavior that are hereditary and common across the species. A Mead Project source page Originally published as: James Rowland Angell. 6 Types of Natural Instincts The same survival mechanisms that kept our forefathers alive can help keep us alive as well.

A primitive reflex is displayed by normal human infants and not neurologically intact adults. "The Important Human Instincts", Chapter 16 in Psychology: An Introductory Study of the Structure and Function of Human Conscious, Third edition, revised. They’re pre-programmed in the brain itself. We must find ways to control dangerous human instincts, especially denial, revenge, tribal …

Scientists continue to examine the purpose of these instincts and develop hypotheses on their function.