The medical encyclopedia defines instinct as an unconditioned reflex, having a complex nature, and manifesting itself as an innate stereotypic reaction to the action of certain stimuli.
Once upon a time, at the beginning of time, our ancestors, filling up bumps, developed a set of behavioral stereotypes. You can’t climb into the mouth of a lion - you’ll get scratched, you can’t jump from the top of the cliff - you will hurt yourself. And in general:
without knowing the ford, do not pop into the water! This is all - the instinct of life, or rather, the instinct of self-preservation for the sake of life.
Instinct is that which was laid in the tribal memory of both animals and people, preventing them from disappearing from the face of the Earth, and that which is now being eradicated by people safely.
Instinct keeps you alive
When a child is born, he brings with him the memory of his ancestors, embedded in his genes in the form of instinct. He instinctively makes sucking movements to satisfy his hunger, and cries, demanding attention to his person. From the moment of birth, he is carried and guarded by the powerful instinct of self-preservation. He does not allow the baby to die of hunger or freeze, not having the opportunity to call for help.
And then, growing up, the child begins to lose this instinct. Yes, do not be surprised! In our modern world, everything is so confused and displaced that even the basic wild instinct - the self-preservation instinct - begins to fade.
Guardianship eradicates self-preservation instinct
We take care of the baby. After all, we are so afraid that he doesn’t know anything, doesn’t understand and can harm himself. Where did this come from? We simply grew up in the same conditions. And they shouted to us: “Do not touch, you will burn yourself!”, “Do not run, you will fall!”
But it turns out that if the child is allowed to explore the world himself and believe in his instincts, he will not get burned and will not fall, because we will not create a halo of an inept helpless creature around him.
If you believe researchers who have lived for a long time in wild tribes, the instinct of self-preservation is an amazing mechanism that turns on as soon as the child begins to study the world around him. Children in these tribes do not fall into pits and are not burned by fire, although they are not accepted for constant supervision by elders.
According to psychologists, it is precisely the fact that the child is given the right to bear responsibility for his life, and forces him to include the instinct of self-preservation. And he, believe me, will work much better than the mother, who decides how to act the child at every moment of his life, and thus takes away this right from him.
The consequences of the loss of self-preservation instinct
And then a new generation appears that does not value, cannot value life. After all, initially, from infancy, these people heard: "You cannot, you do not know, you do not know how." They are afraid of life that they never knew and, accordingly, they cannot
dispose of it. What do they value? Why is it needed - this life? And a person subconsciously joins the game with life, constantly checking its strength. Alcohol, drug addiction, wild games of adolescents, unjustified risk in entertainment - this is a sign that humanity has lost the basic instinct for self-preservation.
As we evolved, we lost touch with our natural habitat. Replacing instinctive behavior with reasonable. But intelligence played a trick on us. We ascended to heaven, ceased to feel the ground under our feet, lost support and, in the end, got lost.