Instinct is an innate unlearned tendency or impulse which is fixed and unchanging and shared by all the members of a species. When a particular form of behaviour is termed instinctive in an animal it becomes the province of ethology. Referring to any form of human behaviour as instinctive leads immediately to heated controversy bedevilled by politics and ideology. In any event the concept appears to be of dubious value in understanding any particular piece of human behaviour, most of which is learned.
Definition