Quote Originally Posted by littleindiangirl View Post
Since I'm bad at describing things, I got this from dictionary.com (I have no psych books in front of me at the moment)
An instinct is a propensity prior to experience, and independent of instructions and Specif., the natural, unreasoning, impulse by which an animal is guided to the performance of any action, without of improvement in the method
Going by that definition (and what I learned from my neuroscience degree hehe), I don't understand how humans have no instincts. I can see maybe that we often don't act on them, but even someone living a very sheltered life with no exposure to sexual language, education, whatever... will experience sexual urges starting around puberty. Isn't that instinct?
Also I'm not sure I buy the "without improvement" clause, since it seems to me that hunting is instinctual in the cat (or is it not, by this definition) yet a mature cat with some experience will be a better hunter than a kitten.