Instinct is the inherent inclination of a living organism towards a particular complex behaviour , containing innate (inborn) elements. The simplest example of an instinctive behaviour is a fixed action pattern (FAP), in which a very short to medium length sequence of actions, without variation, are carried out in response to a corresponding clearly defined stimulus.
180-438: Any behaviour is instinctive if it is performed without being based upon prior experience (that is, in the absence of learning ), and is therefore an expression of innate biological factors. Sea turtles , newly hatched on a beach, will instinctively move toward the ocean. A marsupial climbs into its mother's pouch upon being born. Other examples include animal fighting, animal courtship behaviour, internal escape functions, and
360-454: A positive psychologist , explains that environment plays a key role in human behaviours such as forgiveness and revenge. This hypothesis theorizes that various social environments cause either forgiveness or revenge to prevail. McCollough relates his theory to game theory . In a tit-for-tat strategy, cooperation and retaliation are comparable to forgiveness and revenge. The choice between the two can be beneficial or detrimental, depending on what
540-454: A stimulus . This is based on the notion that a defensive reflex to a stimulus such as withdrawal or escape becomes stronger after the exposure to a different harmful or threatening stimulus. An everyday example of this mechanism is the repeated tonic stimulation of peripheral nerves that occurs if a person rubs their arm continuously. After a while, this stimulation creates a warm sensation that can eventually turn painful. This pain results from
720-407: A "mirror phase" of a baby's development, when the baby sees an image of wholeness in a mirror which gives them a desire for that being. As a person matures, Lacan claims that they still feel separated from themselves by language, which is incomplete, and so a person continually strives to become whole. He uses the term " jouissance " to refer to the lost object or feeling of absence (see manque ) which
900-428: A Kantian perspective, it should be performed out of a desire to do one's duty. These issues are often discussed in contemporary philosophy under the terms of moral praiseworthiness and blameworthiness . One important position in this field is that the praiseworthiness of an action depends on the desire motivating this action. It is common in axiology to define value in relation to desire. Such approaches fall under
1080-444: A bad idea. A closely related theory is due to T. M. Scanlon , who holds that desires are judgments of what we have reasons to do. Critics have pointed out that value-based theories have difficulties explaining how animals, like cats or dogs, can have desires, since they arguably cannot represent things as being good in the relevant sense. A great variety of other theories of desires have been proposed. Attention-based theories take
1260-526: A behavioural response. Some behaviours include maternal care, aggression, defense, and social hierarchy. These behaviours are influenced by sensory input — sight, sound, touch, and smell. Within the circuitry of the limbic system, there are various places where evolution could have taken place, or could take place in the future. For example, many rodents have receptors in the vomeronasal organ that respond explicitly to predator stimuli that specifically relate to that individual species of rodent. The reception of
1440-404: A belief about which action would realize it. Desires present their objects in a favorable light, as something that appears to be good. Their fulfillment is normally experienced as pleasurable in contrast to the negative experience of failing to do so. Conscious desires are usually accompanied by some form of emotional response. While many researchers roughly agree on these general features, there
1620-550: A bond if the object makes sounds. Play generally describes behavior with no particular end in itself, but that improves performance in similar future situations. This is seen in a wide variety of vertebrates besides humans, but is mostly limited to mammals and birds . Cats are known to play with a ball of string when young, which gives them experience with catching prey. Besides inanimate objects, animals may play with other members of their own species or other animals, such as orcas playing with seals they have caught. Play involves
1800-407: A chess piece (psychomotor). Furthermore, later in the game the person may even learn to love the game itself, value its applications in life, and appreciate its history (affective domain). Transfer of learning is the application of skill, knowledge or understanding to resolve a novel problem or situation that happens when certain conditions are fulfilled. Research indicates that learning transfer
1980-524: A child over time. Studies within metacognition have proven the value in active learning, claiming that the learning is usually at a stronger level as a result. In addition, learners have more incentive to learn when they have control over not only how they learn but also what they learn. Active learning is a key characteristic of student-centered learning . Conversely, passive learning and direct instruction are characteristics of teacher-centered learning (or traditional education ). Associative learning
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#17328581245872160-431: A condition called learned helplessness . There is evidence for human behavioral learning prenatally , in which habituation has been observed as early as 32 weeks into gestation , indicating that the central nervous system is sufficiently developed and primed for learning and memory to occur very early on in development . Play has been approached by several theorists as a form of learning. Children experiment with
2340-509: A consequence of ongoing interactions between people and their environment. The nature and processes involved in learning are studied in many established fields (including educational psychology , neuropsychology , experimental psychology , cognitive sciences , and pedagogy ), as well as emerging fields of knowledge (e.g. with a shared interest in the topic of learning from safety events such as incidents/accidents , or in collaborative learning health systems ). Research in such fields has led to
2520-400: A decorating buff entering their favorite furniture store. The role of the salespeople in these cases is simply to guide the customer towards making a choice; they do not have to try to "sell" the general idea of making a purchase, because the customer already wants the products. In other cases, the potential buyer does not have a desire for the product or service, and so the company has to create
2700-413: A degree or intensity. Given this assumption, a preference can be defined as a comparison of two desires. That Nadia prefers tea over coffee, for example, just means that her desire for tea is stronger than her desire for coffee. One argument for this approach is due to considerations of parsimony: a great number of preferences can be derived from a very small number of desires. One objection to this theory
2880-463: A distinction is sometimes made between higher and lower desires. Higher desires are commonly associated with spiritual or religious goals in contrast to lower desires, sometimes termed passions, which are concerned with bodily or sensory pleasures. This difference is closely related to John Stuart Mill 's distinction between the higher pleasures of the mind and the lower pleasures of the body. In some religions, all desires are outright rejected as
3060-453: A dog might learn to sit as the trainer scratches his ears, which ultimately is removing his itches (undesirable aspect). Positive reinforcement is defined by adding a desirable aspect of life or thing. For example, a dog might learn to sit if he receives a treat. In this example the treat was added to the dog's life. The typical paradigm for classical conditioning involves repeatedly pairing an unconditioned stimulus (which unfailingly evokes
3240-414: A favorable light, as something that appears to be good . Besides causing actions and pleasures, desires also have various effects on the mental life. One of these effects is to frequently move the subject's attention to the object of desire , specifically to its positive features. Another effect of special interest to psychology is the tendency of desires to promote reward-based learning , for example, in
3420-685: A form of learning is central to a child's learning and development. Through play, children learn social skills such as sharing and collaboration. Children develop emotional skills such as learning to deal with the emotion of anger, through play activities. As a form of learning, play also facilitates the development of thinking and language skills in children. There are five types of play: These five types of play are often intersecting. All types of play generate thinking and problem-solving skills in children. Children learn to think creatively when they learn through play. Specific activities involved in each type of play change over time as humans progress through
3600-409: A learner interacts with the e-learning environment, it is called augmented learning . By adapting to the needs of individuals, the context-driven instruction can be dynamically tailored to the learner's natural environment. Augmented digital content may include text, images, video, audio (music and voice). By personalizing instruction, augmented learning has been shown to improve learning performance for
3780-424: A lifetime. See also minimally invasive education . Moore (1989) purported that three core types of interaction are necessary for quality, effective online learning: In his theory of transactional distance, Moore (1993) contented that structure and interaction or dialogue bridge the gap in understanding and communication that is created by geographical distances (known as transactional distance). Rote learning
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#17328581245873960-466: A long aching feeling to an unstoppable torrent, include Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert ; Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez ; Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov ; Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, and Dracula by Bram Stoker . Brontë's characterization of Jane Eyre depicts her as torn by an inner conflict between reason and desire, because "customs" and "conventionalities" stand in
4140-548: A long history; researchers in the early 20th century described the possibility that "...habits or mental acts developed by a particular kind of training may inhibit rather than facilitate other mental activities". Finally, Schwarz, Bransford and Sears (2005) have proposed that transferring knowledge into a situation may differ from transferring knowledge out to a situation as a means to reconcile findings that transfer may both be frequent and challenging to promote. A significant and long research history has also attempted to explicate
4320-441: A low rate as well as for the weak and strong stimuli, respectively. Habituation has been shown in essentially every species of animal, as well as the sensitive plant Mimosa pudica and the large protozoan Stentor coeruleus . This concept acts in direct opposition to sensitization. Sensitization is an example of non-associative learning in which the progressive amplification of a response follows repeated administrations of
4500-658: A negative influence on our well-being . The second Noble Truth in Buddhism , for example, states that desiring is the cause of all suffering. A related doctrine is also found in the Hindu tradition of karma yoga , which recommends that we act without a desire for the fruits of our actions, referred to as " Nishkam Karma ". But other strands in Hinduism explicitly distinguish lower or bad desires for worldly things from higher or good desires for closeness or oneness with God . This distinction
4680-427: A new mobile phone, for example, can only result in the action of ordering one online if paired with the belief that ordering it would contribute to the desire being fulfilled. The fulfillment of desires is normally experienced as pleasurable in contrast to the negative experience of failing to do so. But independently of whether the desire is fulfilled or not, there is a sense in which the desire presents its object in
4860-459: A paralyzed person can still have desires. But they also come with new problems of their own. One is that it is usually assumed that there is a causal relation between desires and pleasure: the satisfaction of desires is seen as the cause of the resulting pleasure. But this is only possible if cause and effect are two distinct things, not if they are identical. Apart from this, there may also be bad or misleading desires whose fulfillment does not bring
5040-409: A person believes to be unobtainable. Gilles Deleuze rejects the idea, defended by Lacan and other psychoanalysts, that desire is a form of lack related to incompleteness or a lost object. Instead, he holds that it should be understood as a positive reality in the form of an affirmative vital force. In the field of marketing , desire is the human appetite for a given object of attention. Desire for
5220-447: A person has a desire he does not want to have. A recovering addict, for example, may have both a first-order desire to take drugs and a second-order desire of not following this first-order desire. Or a religious ascetic may still have sexual desires while at the same time wanting to be free of these desires. According to Frankfurt, having second-order volitions , i.e. second-order desires about which first-order desires are followed,
5400-461: A person has to do with having certain mental abilities and is connected to having a certain moral and legal status. An influential theory of persons is due to Harry Frankfurt . He defines persons in terms of higher-order desires. Many of the desires we have, like the desire to have ice cream or to take a vacation, are first-order desires. Higher-order desires, on the other hand, are desires about other desires. They are most prominent in cases where
5580-413: A person's well-being is determined by whether that person's desires are satisfied. It has been suggested that to prefer one thing to another is just to have a stronger desire for the former thing. An influential theory of personhood holds that only entities with higher-order desires can be persons. Desires play a central role in actions as what motivates them. It is usually held that a desire by itself
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5760-444: A pleasurable object, we have to learn, through a hedonic experience of this object for example, that it is pleasurable. But it is also conceivable that reason by itself generates intrinsic desires. On this view, reasoning to the conclusion that it would be rational to have a certain intrinsic desire causes the subject to have this desire. It has also been proposed that instrumental desires may be transformed into intrinsic desires under
5940-524: A predatory stimulus usually creates a response of defense or fear. Mating in rats follows a similar mechanism. The vomeronasal organ and the main olfactory epithelium, together called the olfactory system , detect pheromones from the opposite sex. These signals then travel to the medial amygdala, which disperses the signal to a variety of brain parts. The pathways involved with innate circuitry are extremely specialized and specific. Various organs and sensory receptors play parts in this complex process. Instinct
6120-454: A product is stimulated by advertising, which attempts to give buyers a sense of lack or wanting. In store retailing, merchants attempt to increase the desire of the buyer by showcasing the product attractively, in the case of clothes or jewellery, or, for food stores, by offering samples. With print, TV, and radio advertising, desire is created by giving the potential buyer a sense of lacking ("Are you still driving that old car?") or by associating
6300-446: A product of social interaction and active involvement in both online and onsite courses. Research implies that some un-assessed aspects of onsite and online learning challenge the equivalency of education between the two modalities. Both onsite and online learning have distinct advantages with traditional on-campus students experiencing higher degrees of incidental learning in three times as many areas as online students. Additional research
6480-696: A progressively amplified synaptic response of the peripheral nerves. This sends a warning that the stimulation is harmful. Sensitization is thought to underlie both adaptive as well as maladaptive learning processes in the organism. Active learning occurs when a person takes control of his/her learning experience. Since understanding information is the key aspect of learning, it is important for learners to recognize what they understand and what they do not. By doing so, they can monitor their own mastery of subjects. Active learning encourages learners to have an internal dialogue in which they verbalize understandings. This and other meta-cognitive strategies can be taught to
6660-438: A real predator. Soon the birds react less, showing habituation. If another stuffed owl is introduced (or the same one removed and re-introduced), the birds react to it again as though it were a predator, demonstrating that it is only a very specific stimulus that is habituated to (namely, one particular unmoving owl in one place). The habituation process is faster for stimuli that occur at a high rather than for stimuli that occur at
6840-456: A reflexive response) with another previously neutral stimulus (which does not normally evoke the response). Following conditioning, the response occurs both to the unconditioned stimulus and to the other, unrelated stimulus (now referred to as the "conditioned stimulus"). The response to the conditioned stimulus is termed a conditioned response . The classic example is Ivan Pavlov and his dogs. Pavlov fed his dogs meat powder, which naturally made
7020-526: A result of an event. For example, a fear of dogs that follows being bitten by a dog is episodic learning. Episodic learning is so named because events are recorded into episodic memory , which is one of the three forms of explicit learning and retrieval, along with perceptual memory and semantic memory . Episodic memory remembers events and history that are embedded in experience and this is distinguished from semantic memory, which attempts to extract facts out of their experiential context or – as some describe –
7200-415: A role in many different fields. There is disagreement whether desires should be understood as practical reasons or whether we can have practical reasons without having a desire to follow them. According to fitting-attitude theories of value , an object is valuable if it is fitting to desire this object or if we ought to desire it. Desire-satisfaction theories of well-being state that a person's well-being
7380-465: A sensitive period for a bird in which it learns the identity of its mother. Konrad Lorenz famously had a goose imprint on his boots. Thereafter the goose would follow whoever wore the boots. This suggests that the identity of the goose's mother was learned, but the goose's behaviour towards what it perceived as its mother was instinctive. In a conference in 1960, chaired by Frank Beach , a pioneer in comparative psychology , and attended by luminaries in
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7560-472: A significant cost to animals, such as increased vulnerability to predators and the risk of injury and possibly infection . It also consumes energy , so there must be significant benefits associated with play for it to have evolved. Play is generally seen in younger animals, suggesting a link with learning. However, it may also have other benefits not associated directly with learning, for example improving physical fitness . Play, as it pertains to humans as
7740-749: A significant difference between humans and other animals is that most animals cannot reason. He came to this conclusion after observing how insects and wild birds continued to repeat a certain behaviour in response to a novel situation. While these instinctive behaviours appeared complex, the insects and animals did not adjust their behaviour despite it not helping them in that novel situation. The following are some insect and animal behaviours that Fabre observed and labelled "instinctive", for they do not involve reasoning: Fabre believed instincts were "fixed patterns", meaning these linked sets of behaviours do not change in response to novel environmental situations. One specific example that helped him arrive at this conclusion
7920-415: A significant portion of their income to charities. Such an obligation would constitute a practical reason to act accordingly even for people who feel no desire to do so. A closely related issue in morality asks not what reasons we have but for what reasons we act. This idea goes back to Immanuel Kant , who holds that doing the right thing is not sufficient from the moral perspective. Instead, we have to do
8100-449: A similar effect, like the tics associated with Tourette syndrome . On the other hand, there are desires that do not incline us toward action. These include desires for things we cannot change, for example, a mathematician's desire that the number Pi be a rational number. In some extreme cases, such desires may be very common, for example, a totally paralyzed person may have all kinds of regular desires but lacks any disposition to act due to
8280-441: A specific stimulus, such as the contraction of the pupil in response to bright light or the spasmodic movement of the lower leg when the knee is tapped. The absence of volitional capacity must not be confused with an inability to modify fixed action patterns. For example, people may be able to modify a stimulated fixed action pattern by consciously recognizing the point of its activation and simply stop doing it, whereas animals without
8460-419: A stimulus diminishes when the stimulus is repeated. Thus, habituation must be distinguished from extinction , which is an associative process. In operant extinction, for example, a response declines because it is no longer followed by a reward. An example of habituation can be seen in small song birds—if a stuffed owl (or similar predator ) is put into the cage, the birds initially react to it as though it were
8640-454: A stimulus which acts as a positive reinforcer , such as palatable food , an attractive mate, or an addictive drug ) is called " incentive salience " and research has demonstrated that incentive salience, the sensation of pleasure , and positive reinforcement are all derived from neuronal activity within the reward system . Studies have shown that dopamine signaling in the nucleus accumbens shell and endogenous opioid signaling in
8820-422: A strict sense. One motivation for raising this doubt is that desires are attitudes toward contents but a disposition to have a certain attitude is not automatically an attitude itself. Desires can be occurrent even if they do not influence our behavior. This is the case, for example, if the agent has a conscious desire to do something but successfully resists it. This desire is occurrent because it plays some role in
9000-453: A subgenre of the drama film . Like drama, a melodrama depends mostly on in-depth character development, interaction, and highly emotional themes. Melodramatic films tend to use plots that appeal to the heightened emotions of the audience. Melodramatic plots often deal with "crises of human emotion, failed romance or friendship, strained familial situations, tragedy, illness, neuroses, or emotional and physical hardship." Film critics sometimes use
9180-509: A sufficiently strong volitional capacity may not be able to disengage from their fixed action patterns, once activated. Instinctual behaviour in humans has been studied. Jean Henri Fabre (1823–1915) is said to be the first person to study small animals (other than birds) and insects, and he specifically specialized in the instincts of insects. Fabre considered an instinct to be a linked set of behaviours that an organism undergoes unconsciously in response to external conditions. Fabre concluded
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#17328581245879360-522: A timeless organization of knowledge. For instance, if a person remembers the Grand Canyon from a recent visit, it is an episodic memory. He would use semantic memory to answer someone who would ask him information such as where the Grand Canyon is. A study revealed that humans are very accurate in the recognition of episodic memory even without deliberate intention to memorize it. This is said to indicate
9540-484: A very large storage capacity of the brain for things that people pay attention to. Multimedia learning is where a person uses both auditory and visual stimuli to learn information. This type of learning relies on dual-coding theory . Electronic learning or e-learning is computer-enhanced learning. A specific and always more diffused e-learning is mobile learning (m-learning), which uses different mobile telecommunication equipment, such as cellular phones . When
9720-415: Is memorizing information so that it can be recalled by the learner exactly the way it was read or heard. The major technique used for rote learning is learning by repetition , based on the idea that a learner can recall the material exactly (but not its meaning) if the information is repeatedly processed. Rote learning is used in diverse areas, from mathematics to music to religion. Meaningful learning
9900-468: Is "capable only of devising means to ends set by [bodily] desire". Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) called any action based on desires a hypothetical imperative , which means they are a command of reason, applying only if one desires the goal in question. Kant also established a relation between the beautiful and pleasure in Critique of Judgment . Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel claimed that " self-consciousness
10080-477: Is a kind of learning occurring at a particular life stage that is rapid and apparently independent of the consequences of behavior. In filial imprinting, young animals, particularly birds, form an association with another individual or in some cases, an object, that they respond to as they would to a parent. In 1935, the Austrian Zoologist Konrad Lorenz discovered that certain birds follow and form
10260-510: Is a phenomenon that can be investigated from a multitude of angles: genetics, limbic system, nervous pathways, and environment. Researchers can study levels of instincts, from molecular to groups of individuals. Extremely specialized systems have evolved, resulting in individuals which exhibit behaviours without learning them. Learning Learning is the process of acquiring new understanding , knowledge , behaviors , skills , values , attitudes , and preferences . The ability to learn
10440-438: Is a quite fundamental concept. As such, it is relevant for many different fields. Various definitions and theories of other concepts have been expressed in terms of desires. Actions depend on desires and moral praiseworthiness is sometimes defined in terms of being motivated by the right desire. A popular contemporary approach defines value as that which it is fitting to desire. Desire-satisfaction theories of well-being state that
10620-433: Is a reproductive benefit to offspring survival. If an offspring has attachment to a parent, it is more likely to stay nearby under parental protection. Attached offspring are also more likely to learn from a parental figure when interacting closely. (Reproductive benefits are a driving force behind natural selection .) Environment is an important factor in the evolution of innate behaviour. A hypothesis of Michael McCollough,
10800-450: Is a type of learning based on dialogue. In incidental teaching learning is not planned by the instructor or the student, it occurs as a byproduct of another activity — an experience, observation, self-reflection, interaction, unique event (e.g. in response to incidents/accidents), or common routine task. This learning happens in addition to or apart from the instructor's plans and the student's expectations. An example of incidental teaching
10980-646: Is always related to semiosis , and is often associated with representational systems/activity. There are various functional categorizations of memory which have developed. Some memory researchers distinguish memory based on the relationship between the stimuli involved (associative vs non-associative) or based to whether the content can be communicated through language (declarative/explicit vs procedural/implicit). Some of these categories can, in turn, be parsed into sub-types. For instance, declarative memory comprises both episodic and semantic memory. Non-associative learning refers to "a relatively permanent change in
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#173285812458711160-627: Is at the core of romance novels, which often create drama by showing cases where human desire is impeded by social conventions , class , or cultural barriers. Melodrama films use plots that appeal to the heightened emotions of the audience by showing "crises of human emotion, failed romance or friendship", in which desire is thwarted or unrequited. Theories of desire aim to define desires in terms of their essential features. A great variety of features are ascribed to desires, like that they are propositional attitudes, that they lead to actions, that their fulfillment tends to bring pleasure, etc. Across
11340-437: Is between intrinsic desires , i.e. what the subject wants for its own sake, and instrumental desires , i.e. what the subject wants for the sake of something else. Instrumental desires depend for their formation and existence on other desires. For example, Aisha has a desire to find a charging station at the airport. This desire is instrumental because it is based on another desire: to keep her mobile phone from dying. Without
11520-427: Is busy convincing her friend to go hiking this weekend, for example, then her desire to go hiking is occurrent. But many of her other desires, like to sell her old car or to talk with her boss about a promotion, are merely standing during this conversation. Standing desires remain part of the mind even while the subject is sound asleep. It has been questioned whether standing desires should be considered desires at all in
11700-459: Is called for to investigate the implications of these findings both conceptually and pedagogically. Benjamin Bloom has suggested three domains of learning in his taxonomy which are: These domains are not mutually exclusive. For example, in learning to play chess , the person must learn the rules (cognitive domain)—but must also learn how to set up the chess pieces and how to properly hold and move
11880-528: Is called instinct is often imprecisely defined, and really amounts to strong "drives". For Maslow, an instinct is something which cannot be overridden, and therefore while the term may have applied to humans in the past, it no longer does. An interest in innate behaviours arose again in the 1950s with Konrad Lorenz and Nikolaas Tinbergen , who made the distinction between instinct and learned behaviours. Our modern understanding of instinctual behaviour in animals owes much to their work. For instance, there exists
12060-411: Is central to many issues concerning desires. Something is desired intrinsically if the subject desires it for its own sake . Pleasure is a common object of intrinsic desires. According to psychological hedonism , it is the only thing desired intrinsically. Intrinsic desires have a special status in that they do not depend on other desires. They contrast with instrumental desires, in which something
12240-402: Is commonly associated with desires. They are seen as propositional attitudes towards conceivable states of affairs . They aim to change the world by representing how the world should be, unlike beliefs , which aim to represent how the world actually is. Desires are closely related to agency : they motivate the agent to realize them. For this to be possible, a desire has to be combined with
12420-419: Is desire". Because desire can cause humans to become obsessed and embittered, it has been called one of the causes of woe for mankind. In Buddhism , craving (see taṇhā ) is thought to be the cause of all suffering that one experiences in human existence. The eradication of craving leads one to ultimate happiness, or Nirvana . However, desire for wholesome things is seen as liberating and enhancing. While
12600-442: Is desired for the sake of something else . For example, Haruto enjoys movies, which is why he has an intrinsic desire to watch them. But in order to watch them, he has to step into his car, navigate through the traffic to the nearby cinema, wait in line, pay for the ticket, etc. He desires to do all these things as well, but only in an instrumental manner. He would not do all these things were it not for his intrinsic desire to watch
12780-414: Is determined by whether that person's desires are satisfied. Marketing and advertising companies have used psychological research on how desire is stimulated to find more effective ways to induce consumers into buying a given product or service. Techniques include creating a sense of lack in the viewer or associating the product with desirable attributes. Desire plays a key role in art. The theme of desire
12960-512: Is found, for example, in the Bhagavad Gita or in the tradition of bhakti yoga . A similar line of thought is present in the teachings of Christianity . In the doctrine of the seven deadly sins , for example, various vices are listed, which have been defined as perverse or corrupt versions of love. Explicit reference to bad forms of desiring is found, for example, in the sins of lust , gluttony and greed . The seven sins are contrasted with
13140-708: Is good. Desires can be grouped into various types according to a few basic distinctions. Intrinsic desires concern what the subject wants for its own sake while instrumental desires are about what the subject wants for the sake of something else. Occurrent desires are either conscious or otherwise causally active, in contrast to standing desires , which exist somewhere in the back of one's mind. Propositional desires are directed at possible states of affairs while object-desires are directly about objects. Various authors distinguish between higher desires associated with spiritual or religious goals and lower desires, which are concerned with bodily or sensory pleasures. Desires play
13320-419: Is his study of various wasp species. All of the wasp species he studied performed a certain pattern of behaviour when catching their prey, which Fabre called a fixed pattern. Then Fabre intervened in the wasps' process of catching prey, and only one of the species adjusted their behaviour in response to this unfamiliar interception. Fabre explained this contradiction by arguing that any individuals which stray from
13500-426: Is infrequent; most common when "... cued, primed, and guided..." and has sought to clarify what it is, and how it might be promoted through instruction. Over the history of its discourse, various hypotheses and definitions have been advanced. First, it is speculated that different types of transfer exist, including: near transfer, the application of skill to solve a novel problem in a similar context; and far transfer,
13680-581: Is known for founding the first psychology laboratory, which occurred in 1879 at the University of Leipzig. He was able to draw conclusions about instinct from his careful observations of both animal and human behaviour. Wundt believed unconscious processes (which he called "instinctive movements") were the result of sensations and emotions, and these unconscious processes were building blocks towards consciousness . An example of what Wundt studied to arrive at his conclusions regarding unconscious processes includes
13860-421: Is more suitable for describing animal behaviour, while he recommended the word propensity for goal-directed combinations of the many innate human abilities, which are loosely and variably linked, in a way that shows strong plasticity . In the 1950s, the psychologist Abraham Maslow argued that humans no longer have instincts because we have the ability to override them in certain situations. He felt that what
14040-404: Is not satisfied by the mere existence of omelets nor by his coming into possession of an omelet at some indeterminate point in his life. So it seems that, when pressed for the details, object-desire-theorists have to resort to propositional expressions to articulate what exactly these desires entail. This threatens to collapse object-desires into propositional desires. In religion and philosophy,
14220-427: Is not sufficient: it has to be combined with a belief that the action in question would contribute to the fulfillment of the desire. The notion of practical reasons is closely related to motivation and desire. Some philosophers, often from a Humean tradition , simply identify an agent's desires with the practical reasons he has. A closely related view holds that desires are not reasons themselves but present reasons to
14400-558: Is possessed by humans , non-human animals , and some machines ; there is also evidence for some kind of learning in certain plants . Some learning is immediate, induced by a single event (e.g. being burned by a hot stove ), but much skill and knowledge accumulate from repeated experiences. The changes induced by learning often last a lifetime, and it is hard to distinguish learned material that seems to be "lost" from that which cannot be retrieved. Human learning starts at birth (it might even start before ) and continues until death as
14580-462: Is realized. This would mean that an agent cannot desire to have something if he believes that he already has it. One objection to the death-of-desire thesis comes from the fact that our preferences usually do not change upon desire-satisfaction. So if Samuel prefers to wear dry clothes rather than wet clothes, he would continue to hold this preference even after having come home from a rainy day and having changed his clothes. This would indicate against
14760-437: Is significant disagreement about how to define desires, i.e. which of these features are essential and which ones are merely accidental. Action-based theories define desires as structures that incline us toward actions. Pleasure-based theories focus on the tendency of desires to cause pleasure when fulfilled. Value-based theories identify desires with attitudes toward values, like judging or having an appearance that something
14940-474: Is spent. In Cathy Cupitt's article on "Desire and Vision in Blade Runner", she argues that film, as a "visual narrative form, plays with the voyeuristic desires of its audience". Focusing on the dystopian 1980s science fiction film Blade Runner , she calls the film an "Object of Visual Desire", in which it plays to an "expectation of an audience's delight in visual texture, with the 'retro-fitted' spectacle of
15120-485: Is that our introspective access is much more immediate in cases of preferences than in cases of desires. So it is usually much easier for us to know which of two options we prefer than to know the degree with which we desire a particular object. This consideration has been used to suggest that maybe preference, and not desire, is the more fundamental notion. Personhood is what persons have. There are various theories about what constitutes personhood. Most agree that being
15300-401: Is the wrong kind of reason problem , which is based on the consideration that facts independent of the value of an object may affect whether this object ought to be desired. In one thought experiment, an evil demon threatens the agent to kill her family unless she desires him. In such a situation, it is fitting for the agent to desire the demon in order to save her family, despite the fact that
15480-399: Is the concept that learned knowledge (e.g., a fact) is fully understood to the extent that it relates to other knowledge. To this end, meaningful learning contrasts with rote learning in which information is acquired without regard to understanding. Meaningful learning, on the other hand, implies there is a comprehensive knowledge of the context of the facts learned. Evidence-based learning
15660-446: Is the mark of personhood. It is a form of caring about oneself, of being concerned with who one is and what one does. Not all entities with a mind have higher-order volitions. Frankfurt terms them "wantons" in contrast to "persons". On his view, animals and maybe also some human beings are wantons . Both psychology and philosophy are interested in where desires come from or how they form. An important distinction for this investigation
15840-417: Is the process by which a person or animal learns an association between two stimuli or events. In classical conditioning , a previously neutral stimulus is repeatedly paired with a reflex-eliciting stimulus until eventually the neutral stimulus elicits a response on its own. In operant conditioning, a behavior that is reinforced or punished in the presence of a stimulus becomes more or less likely to occur in
16020-552: Is the process by which people self-educate if a topic is exposed to them in a context that they already enjoy. For example, after playing a music-based video game, some people may be motivated to learn how to play a real instrument, or after watching a TV show that references Faust and Lovecraft, some people may be inspired to read the original work. Self-education can be improved with systematization. According to experts in natural learning, self-oriented learning training has proven an effective tool for assisting independent learners with
16200-440: Is the small and ideal period of time between the subject performing the desired behavior, and receiving the positive reinforcement as a result of their performance. The reward needs to be given immediately after the completion of the wanted behavior. Operant conditioning is different from classical conditioning in that it shapes behavior not solely on bodily reflexes that occur naturally to a specific stimulus, but rather focuses on
16380-412: Is the use of evidence from well designed scientific studies to accelerate learning. Evidence-based learning methods such as spaced repetition can increase the rate at which a student learns. Formal learning is a deliberate way attaining of knowledge, which takes place within a teacher-student environment, such as in a school system or work environment. The term formal learning has nothing to do with
16560-499: Is to be disposed to bring it about that P, assuming one's beliefs are true". Despite their popularity and their usefulness for empirical investigations, action-based theories face various criticisms. These criticisms can roughly be divided into two groups. On the one hand, there are inclinations to act that are not based on desires. Evaluative beliefs about what we should do, for example, incline us toward doing it, even if we do not want to do it. There are also mental disorders that have
16740-442: Is true that sexual confusion can be aberrative in a few cases, there is no credible evidence to suggest that it is a universal scenario. While Freud was correct in labeling the various symptoms behind most compulsions, phobias and disorders, he was largely incorrect in his theories regarding the etiology of what he identified. French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist Jacques Lacan (1901–1981) argues that desire first occurs during
16920-456: Is usually held that desires come in varying strengths: some things are desired more strongly than other things. We desire things in regard to some features they have but usually not in regard to all of their features. Desires are also closely related to agency : we normally try to realize our desires when acting. It is usually held that desires by themselves are not sufficient for actions: they have to be combined with beliefs. The desire to own
17100-415: Is very common and natural in everyday language. But one important objection to this view is that object-desires lack proper conditions of satisfaction necessary for desires. Conditions of satisfaction determine under which situations a desire is satisfied. Arielle's desire is satisfied if the that-clause expressing her desire has been realized, i.e. she is having an omelet for breakfast. But Louis's desire
17280-560: Is what dissatisfies us". In "The Rose for the World", he admires her beauty, but feels pain because he cannot be with her. In the poem "No Second Troy", Yeats overflows with anger and bitterness because of their unrequited love. Poet T. S. Eliot dealt with the themes of desire and homoeroticism in his poetry, prose and drama. Other poems on the theme of desire include John Donne 's poem "To His Mistress Going to Bed", Carol Ann Duffy 's longings in "Warming Her Pearls"; Ted Hughes ' "Lovesong" about
17460-412: Is when an aversive aspect of life or thing is added to the subject, for this reason it is called positive punishment. For example, the parent spanking their child would be considered a positive punishment, because a spanking was added to the child. Negative punishment is considered the removal of something loved or desirable from the subject. For example, when a parent puts his child in time out, in reality,
17640-491: Is when the instructor places a train set on top of a cabinet. If the child points or walks towards the cabinet, the instructor prompts the student to say "train". Once the student says "train", he gets access to the train set. Here are some steps most commonly used in incidental teaching: Incidental learning is an occurrence that is not generally accounted for using the traditional methods of instructional objectives and outcomes assessment. This type of learning occurs in part as
17820-604: The Civilization games are presented as an example – by using these modules gamers can dig deeper for knowledge about historical events in the gameplay. The importance of rules that regulate learning modules and game experience is discussed by Moreno, C., in a case study about the mobile game Kiwaka . In this game, developed by Landka in collaboration with ESA and ESO , progress is rewarded with educational content, as opposed to traditional education games where learning activities are rewarded with gameplay. Dialogic learning
18000-513: The early Buddhist scriptures , the Buddha stated that monks should "generate desire" for the sake of fostering skillful qualities and abandoning unskillful ones. Within Christianity, desire is seen as something that can either lead a person towards God or away from him. Desire is not considered to be a bad thing in and of itself; rather, it is a powerful force within the human that, once submitted to
18180-581: The primitive reflexes , such as rooting and suckling, behaviours which are present in mammals . In rats, it has been observed that innate responses are related to specific chemicals, and these chemicals are detected by two organs located in the nose: the vomeronasal organ (VNO) and the main olfactory epithelium (MOE). Some instinctive behaviours depend on maturational processes to appear. For instance, we commonly refer to birds "learning" to fly. However, young birds have been experimentally reared in devices that prevent them from moving their wings until they reached
18360-446: The seven virtues , which include the corresponding positive counterparts. A desire for God is explicitly encouraged in various doctrines. Existentialists sometimes distinguish between authentic and inauthentic desires. Authentic desires express what the agent truly wants from deep within. An agent wants something inauthentically, on the other hand, if the agent is not fully identified with this desire, despite having it. Desire
18540-436: The ventral pallidum are at least partially responsible for mediating an individual's desire (i.e., incentive salience) for a rewarding stimulus and the subjective perception of pleasure derived from experiencing or "consuming" a rewarding stimulus (e.g., pleasure derived from eating palatable food, sexual pleasure from intercourse with an attractive mate, or euphoria from using an addictive drug ). Research also shows that
18720-460: The "instinct of curiosity" and its associated "emotion of wonder", though Spink's book does not mention this. M. S. Blumberg in 2017 examined the use of the word instinct, and found it varied significantly. Among possible examples of instinct-influenced behaviour in humans are the following. Examples of behaviours that do not require thought include many reflexes. The stimulus in a reflex may not require brain activity but instead may travel to
18900-590: The Lordship of Christ, can become a tool for good, for advancement, and for abundant living. In Hinduism , the Rig Veda's creation myth Nasadiya Sukta states regarding the one (ekam) spirit: "In the beginning there was Desire (kama) that was first seed of mind. Poets found the bond of being in non-being in their heart's thought". While desires are often classified as emotions by laypersons, psychologists often describe desires as ur-emotions, or feelings that do not quite fit
19080-470: The Wind , in which "desire is the driving force for both Scarlett and the hero, Rhett". Scarlett desires love, money, the attention of men, and the vision of being a virtuous "true lady". Rhett Butler desires to be with Scarlett, which builds to a burning longing that is ultimately his undoing, because Scarlett keeps refusing his advances; when she finally confesses her secret desire, Rhett is worn out and his longing
19260-606: The aforementioned features in their definition of desires. Desires can be grouped into various types according to a few basic distinctions. Something is desired intrinsically if the subject desires it for its own sake . Otherwise, the desire is instrumental or extrinsic . Occurrent desires are causally active while standing desires exist somewhere in the back of one's mind. Propositional desires are directed at possible states of affairs, in contrast to object-desires, which are directly about objects. The distinction between intrinsic and instrumental or extrinsic desires
19440-426: The age at which their cohorts were flying. These birds flew immediately and normally when released, showing that their improvement resulted from neuromuscular maturation and not true learning. Imprinting provides one example of instinct. This complex response may involve visual, auditory, and olfactory cues in the environment surrounding an organism. In some cases, imprinting attaches an offspring to its parent, which
19620-414: The agent. A strength of these positions is that they can give a straightforward explanation of how practical reasons can act as motivation. But an important objection is that we may have reasons to do things without a desire to do them. This is especially relevant in the field of morality . Peter Singer , for example, suggests that most people living in developed countries have a moral obligation to donate
19800-482: The agents mental life, even if it is not action-guiding. The dominant view is that all desires are to be understood as propositional attitudes . But a contrasting view allows that at least some desires are directed not at propositions or possible states of affairs but directly at objects. This difference is also reflected on a linguistic level. Object-desires can be expressed through a direct object, for example, Louis desires an omelet . Propositional desires, on
19980-400: The application of skill to solve a novel problem presented in a different context. Furthermore, Perkins and Salomon (1992) suggest that positive transfer in cases when learning supports novel problem solving, and negative transfer occurs when prior learning inhibits performance on highly correlated tasks, such as second or third-language learning. Concepts of positive and negative transfer have
20160-402: The building of nests . Though an instinct is defined by its invariant innate characteristics, details of its performance can be changed by experience; for example, a dog can improve its listening skills by practice. Instincts are inborn complex patterns of behaviour that exist in most members of the species, and should be distinguished from reflexes , which are simple responses of an organism to
20340-589: The category of fitting-attitude theories . According to them, an object is valuable if it is fitting to desire this object or if we ought to desire it. This is sometimes expressed by saying that the object is desirable , appropriately desired or worthy of desire . Two important aspects of this type of position are that it reduces values to deontic notions , or what we ought to feel, and that it makes values dependent on human responses and attitudes . Despite their popularity, fitting-attitude theories of value face various theoretical objections. An often-cited one
20520-516: The category of basic emotions. For psychologists, desires arise from bodily structures and functions (e.g., the stomach needing food and the blood needing oxygen). On the other hand, emotions arise from a person's mental state. A 2008 study by the University of Michigan indicated that, while humans experience desire and fear as psychological opposites, they share the same brain circuit. A 2008 study entitled "The Neural Correlates of Desire" showed that
20700-451: The child is losing the opportunity to be with friends, or to enjoy the freedom to do as he pleases. In this example, negative punishment is the removal of the child's desired rights to play with his friends etc. Reinforcement on the other hand is used to increase a wanted behavior either through negative reinforcement or positive reinforcement. Negative reinforcement is defined by removing an undesirable aspect of life, or thing. For example,
20880-479: The children participated in everyday activities, they learned the cultural significance of these interactions. The collaborative and helpful behaviors exhibited by Mexican and Mexican-heritage children is a cultural practice known as being "acomedido". Chillihuani girls in Peru described themselves as weaving constantly, following behavior shown by the other adults. Episodic learning is a change in behavior that occurs as
21060-435: The children's upkeep?". Marketing theorists call desire the third stage in the hierarchy of effects, which occurs when the buyer develops a sense that if they felt the need for the type of product in question, the advertised product is what would quench their desire. The theme of desire is at the core of the written fictions , especially romance novels. Novels which are based around the theme of desire, which can range from
21240-777: The conditions under which transfer of learning might occur. Early research by Ruger, for example, found that the "level of attention", "attitudes", "method of attack" (or method for tackling a problem), a "search for new points of view", a "careful testing of hypothesis" and "generalization" were all valuable approaches for promoting transfer. To encourage transfer through teaching, Perkins and Salomon recommend aligning ("hugging") instruction with practice and assessment, and "bridging", or encouraging learners to reflect on past experiences or make connections between prior knowledge and current content. Desire Desires are states of mind that are expressed by terms like " wanting ", " wishing ", "longing" or "craving". A great variety of features
21420-456: The contending sides in the nature–nurture debate as applied to the analysis of behavior." F. B. Mandal proposed a set of criteria by which a behaviour might be considered instinctual: (a) be automatic, (b) be irresistible, (c) occur at some point in development, (d) be triggered by some event in the environment, (e) occur in every member of the species, (f) be unmodifiable, and (g) govern behaviour for which
21600-471: The culture. This is different from acculturation , where a person adopts the values and societal rules of a culture different from their native one. Multiple examples of enculturation can be found cross-culturally. Collaborative practices in the Mazahua people have shown that participation in everyday interaction and later learning activities contributed to enculturation rooted in nonverbal social experience. As
21780-427: The death-of-desire thesis that no change on the level of the agent's conative states takes place. In philosophy, desire has been identified as a philosophical problem since Antiquity. In The Republic , Plato argues that individual desires must be postponed in the name of the higher ideal. In De Anima , Aristotle claims that desire is implicated in animal interactions and the propensity of animals to motion; at
21960-399: The demon does not possess positive value. Well-being is usually considered a special type of value: the well-being of a person is what is ultimately good for this person. Desire-satisfaction theories are among the major theories of well-being. They state that a person's well-being is determined by whether that person's desires are satisfied: the higher the number of satisfied desires,
22140-497: The different theories of desires, there is a broad agreement about what these features are. Their disagreement concerns which of these features belong to the essence of desires and which ones are merely accidental or contingent. Traditionally, the two most important theories define desires in terms of dispositions to cause actions or concerning their tendency to bring pleasure upon being fulfilled. An important alternative of more recent origin holds that desiring something means seeing
22320-430: The difficulty of explaining how we can have beliefs about what we should do despite not wanting to do it. A more promising approach identifies desires not with value-beliefs but with value-seemings. On this view, to desire to have one more drink is the same as it seeming good to the subject to have one more drink. But such a seeming is compatible with the subject having the opposite belief that having one more drink would be
22500-401: The dogs learned that the bell signaled that food was about to come, and began to salivate when they heard the bell. Once this occurred, the bell became the conditioned stimulus (CS) and the salivation to the bell became the conditioned response (CR). Classical conditioning has been demonstrated in many species. For example, it is seen in honeybees, in the proboscis extension reflex paradigm. It
22680-428: The dogs salivate—salivating is a reflexive response to the meat powder. Meat powder is the unconditioned stimulus (US) and the salivation is the unconditioned response (UR). Pavlov rang a bell before presenting the meat powder. The first time Pavlov rang the bell, the neutral stimulus, the dogs did not salivate, but once he put the meat powder in their mouths they began to salivate. After numerous pairings of bell and food,
22860-529: The existence of instincts is natural selection . More specifically, his research suggests natural selection causes small changes in the nervous system over time. These changes bring about hereditary drives in organisms, which are then responsible for any unconscious processes. Another thing to note is that Wundt used the terms unconscious processes , reflexive movements , and instinctive movements interchangeably, often grouping them together. Sigmund Freud considered that mental images of bodily needs, expressed in
23040-468: The facial expressions babies made in response to the sensations of sweet, sour, and bitter tastes. He concluded these facial expressions were the result of the babies trying to avoid unpleasant emotions because there was something unpleasant in their mouths, and that these instincts (which he uses interchangeably with reflexive movements) only became innate because past generations learned it and it benefited their survival. The process by which Wundt explained
23220-404: The field, the term instinct was restricted in its application. During the 1960s and 1970s, textbooks still contained some discussion of instincts in reference to human behaviour. By the year 2000, a survey of the 12 best selling textbooks in introductory psychology revealed only one reference to instincts, and that was in regard to Sigmund Freud 's referral to the " id " instincts. In this sense,
23400-493: The form of operant conditioning . Action-based or motivational theories have traditionally been dominant. They can take different forms but they all have in common that they define desires as structures that incline us toward actions. This is especially relevant when ascribing desires, not from a first-person perspective, but from a third-person perspective. Action-based theories usually include some reference to beliefs in their definition, for example, that "to desire that P
23580-411: The form of mental desires , are called instincts. In the early 20th century, there was recognized a "union of instinct and emotion". William McDougall held that many instincts have their respective associated specific emotions . As research became more rigorous and terms better defined, instinct as an explanation for human behaviour became less common. In 1932, McDougall argued that the word instinct
23760-477: The formal-learning systems if they get work done in informal-learning circuits. They may be given time to assist international youth workshops and training courses, on the condition they prepare, contribute, share, and can prove this offered valuable new insight, helped to acquire new skills, a place to get experience in organizing, teaching , etc. To learn a skill, such as solving a Rubik's Cube quickly, several factors come into play at once: Tangential learning
23940-533: The formality of the learning, but rather the way it is directed and organized. In formal learning, the learning or training departments set out the goals and objectives of the learning and oftentimes learners will be awarded with a diploma, or a type of formal recognition. Non-formal learning is organized learning outside the formal learning system. For example, learning by coming together with people with similar interests and exchanging viewpoints, in clubs or in (international) youth organizations, and workshops. From
24120-481: The graveyard as a mixture of fear and blissful emotion. Poet W. B. Yeats depicts the positive and negative aspects of desire in his poems such as "The Rose for the World", "Adam's Curse", "No Second Troy", "All Things can Tempt me", and "Meditations in Time of Civil War". Some poems depict desire as a poison for the soul; Yeats worked through his desire for his beloved, Maud Gonne, and realized that "Our longing, our craving, our thirsting for something other than Reality
24300-490: The higher the well-being. One problem for some versions of desire theory is that not all desires are good: some desires may even have terrible consequences for the agent. Desire theorists have tried to avoid this objection by holding that what matters are not actual desires but the desires the agent would have if she was fully informed. Desires and preferences are two closely related notions: they are both conative states that determine our behavior. The difference between
24480-402: The human brain categorizes stimuli according to its desirability by activating three different brain areas: the superior orbitofrontal cortex , the mid- cingulate cortex , and the anterior cingulate cortex . In affective neuroscience , "desire" and "wanting" are operationally defined as motivational salience ; the form of "desire" or "wanting" associated with a rewarding stimulus (i.e.,
24660-407: The identification of various sorts of learning. For example, learning may occur as a result of habituation , or classical conditioning , operant conditioning or as a result of more complex activities such as play , seen only in relatively intelligent animals. Learning may occur consciously or without conscious awareness. Learning that an aversive event cannot be avoided or escaped may result in
24840-607: The instrumental desire remains. Such cases are sometimes termed "motivational inertia". Something like this might be the case when the agent finds himself with a desire to go to the kitchen, only to realize upon arriving that he does not know what he wants there. Intrinsic desires , on the other hand, do not depend on other desires. Some authors hold that all or at least some intrinsic desires are inborn or innate, for example, desires for pleasure or for nutrition. But other authors suggest that even these relatively basic desires may depend to some extent on experience: before we can desire
25020-451: The latter desire, the former would not have come into existence. As an additional requirement, a possibly unconscious belief or judgment is necessary to the effect that the fulfillment of the instrumental desire would somehow contribute to the fulfillment of the desire it is based on. Instrumental desires usually pass away after the desires they are based on cease to exist. But defective cases are possible where, often due to absentmindedness,
25200-537: The learner ponders his or her situation. This type of learning does not require a professor of any kind, and learning outcomes are unforeseen following the learning experience. Informal learning is self-directed and because it focuses on day-to-day situations, the value of informal learning can be considered high. As a result, information retrieved from informal learning experiences will likely be applicable to daily life. Children with informal learning can at times yield stronger support than subjects with formal learning in
25380-454: The learner's perspective, informal learning can become purposeful, because the learner chooses which rate is appropriate to learn and because this type of learning tends to take place within smaller groups or by oneself. The educational system may use a combination of formal, informal, and nonformal learning methods. The UN and EU recognize these different forms of learning (cf. links below). In some schools, students can get points that count in
25560-437: The learning of emotion through classical conditioning principles. Observational learning is learning that occurs through observing the behavior of others. It is a form of social learning which takes various forms, based on various processes. In humans, this form of learning seems to not need reinforcement to occur, but instead, requires a social model such as a parent, sibling, friend, or teacher with surroundings. Imprinting
25740-421: The lifespan. Play as a form of learning, can occur solitarily, or involve interacting with others. Enculturation is the process by which people learn values and behaviors that are appropriate or necessary in their surrounding culture . Parents, other adults, and peers shape the individual's understanding of these values. If successful, enculturation results in competence in the language, values, and rituals of
25920-487: The mother creates neuroses in their sons. Freud used the Greek myth of Oedipus to argue that people desire incest and must repress that desire. He claimed that children pass through several stages, including a stage in which they fixate on the mother as a sexual object. That this "complex" is universal has long since been disputed. Even if it were true, that would not explain those neuroses in daughters, but only in sons. While it
26100-503: The movie there. But there are also constitutive means besides causal means . Constitutive means are not causes but ways of doing something. Watching the movie while sitting in seat 13F, for example, is one way of watching the movie, but not an antecedent cause . Desires corresponding to constitutive means are sometimes termed "realizer desires". Occurrent desires are desires that are currently active. They are either conscious or at least have unconscious effects, for example, on
26280-413: The movie. It is possible to desire the same thing both intrinsically and instrumentally at the same time. So if Haruto was a driving enthusiast, he might have both an intrinsic and an instrumental desire to drive to the cinema. Instrumental desires are usually about causal means to bring the object of another desire about. Driving to the cinema, for example, is one of the causal requirements for watching
26460-406: The natural phases of learning. Extra Credits writer and game designer James Portnow was the first to suggest games as a potential venue for "tangential learning". Mozelius et al. points out that intrinsic integration of learning content seems to be a crucial design factor, and that games that include modules for further self-studies tend to present good results. The built-in encyclopedias in
26640-422: The norms of their species are merely an exception, while also admitting that there could be some room for growth within a species' instincts. Fabre's belief that instincts are fixed opposes the theory of evolution. He rejected that one species could evolve into another, and also rejected that the consciousness humans possess could be achieved through the evolution of unconscious traits. Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920)
26820-442: The object of desire as valuable . A great variety of features is ascribed to desires. They are usually seen as attitudes toward conceivable states of affairs , often referred to as propositional attitudes . They differ from beliefs , which are also commonly seen as propositional attitudes, by their direction of fit . Both beliefs and desires are representations of the world. But while beliefs aim at truth, i.e. to represent how
27000-483: The orbitofrontal cortex has connections to both the opioid and dopamine systems, and stimulating this cortex is associated with subjective reports of pleasure. Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud , who is best known for his theories of the unconscious mind and the defense mechanism of repression and for creating the clinical practice of psychoanalysis, proposed the notion of the Oedipus complex , which argues that desire for
27180-408: The organism needs no training (although the organism may profit from experience and to that degree the behaviour is modifiable). In Information Behavior: An Evolutionary Instinct (2010, pp. 35–42), Amanda Spink notes that "currently in the behavioral sciences instinct is generally understood as the innate part of behavior that emerges without any training or education in humans." She claims that
27360-457: The organizer's point of reference, non-formal learning does not always need a main objective or learning outcome. From the learner's point of view, non-formal learning, although not focused on outcomes, often results in an intentional learning opportunity. Informal learning is less structured than "non-formal learning". It may occur through the experience of day-to-day situations (for example, one would learn to look ahead while walking because of
27540-408: The other hand, are usually expressed through a that-clause, for example, Arielle desires that she has an omelet for breakfast . Propositionalist theories hold that direct-object-expressions are just a short form for that-clause-expressions while object-desire-theorists contend that they correspond to a different form of desire. One argument in favor of the latter position is that talk of object-desire
27720-519: The paralysis. It is one important feature of desires that their fulfillment is pleasurable. Pleasure-based or hedonic theories use this feature as part of their definition of desires. According to one version, "to desire p is ... to be disposed to take pleasure in it seeming that p and displeasure in it seeming that not-p". Hedonic theories avoid many of the problems faced by action-based theories: they allow that other things besides desires incline us to actions and they have no problems explaining how
27900-471: The partner-organism chooses. Though this psychological example of game theory does not have such directly measurable results, it provides an interesting theory of unique thought. From a more biological standpoint, the brain's limbic system operates as the main control-area for response to certain stimuli, including a variety of instinctual behaviour. The limbic system processes external stimuli related to emotions, social activity, and motivation, which propagates
28080-408: The pleasure they originally seemed to promise. Value-based theories are of more recent origin than action-based theories and hedonic theories . They identify desires with attitudes toward values. Cognitivist versions , sometimes referred to as desire-as-belief theses, equate desires with beliefs that something is good, thereby categorizing desires as one type of belief. But such versions face
28260-485: The possible dangers inherent in not paying attention to where one is going). It is learning from life, during a meal at the table with parents, during play , and while exploring etc.. For the learner, informal learning is most often an experience of happenstance, and not a deliberately planned experience. Thus this does not require enrollment into any class. Unlike formal learning, informal learning typically does not lead to accreditation. Informal learning begins to unfold as
28440-404: The presence of that stimulus. Operant conditioning is a way in which behavior can be shaped or modified according to the desires of the trainer or head individual. Operant conditioning uses the thought that living things seek pleasure and avoid pain, and that an animal or human can learn through receiving either reward or punishment at a specific time called trace conditioning. Trace conditioning
28620-409: The product with desirable attributes, either by showing a celebrity using or wearing the product, or by giving the product a " halo effect " by showing attractive models with the product. Nike's "Just Do It" ads for sports shoes are appealing to consumers' desires for self-betterment. In some cases, the potential buyer already has the desire for the product before they enter the store, as in the case of
28800-504: The right conditions. This could be possible through processes of reward-based learning . The idea is that whatever reliably predicts the fulfillment of intrinsic desires may itself become the object of an intrinsic desire. So a baby may initially only instrumentally desire its mother because of the warmth, hugs and milk she provides. But over time, this instrumental desire may become an intrinsic desire. The death-of-desire thesis holds that desires cannot continue to exist once their object
28980-468: The right thing for the right reason. He refers to this distinction as the difference between legality ( Legalität ), i.e. acting in accordance with outer norms, and morality ( Moralität ), i.e. being motivated by the right inward attitude. On this view, donating a significant portion of one's income to charities is not a moral action if the motivating desire is to improve one's reputation by convincing other people of one's wealth and generosity. Instead, from
29160-566: The same time, he acknowledges that reasoning also interacts with desire. Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) proposed the concept of psychological hedonism , which asserts that the "fundamental motivation of all human action is the desire for pleasure." Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) had a view which contrasted with Hobbes, in that "he saw natural desires as a form of bondage" that are not chosen by a person of their own free will . David Hume (1711–1776) claimed that desires and passions are non-cognitive, automatic bodily responses, and he argued that reasoning
29340-401: The savage intensity of desire; and Wendy Cope 's humorous poem "Song". Philippe Borgeaud's novels analyse how emotions such as erotic desire and seduction are connected to fear and wrath by examining cases where people are worried about issues of impurity, sin, and shame. Just as desire is central to the written fiction genre of romance, it is the central theme of melodrama films, which are
29520-402: The sense of desire. An example of this situation is for life insurance. Most young adults are not thinking about dying, so they are not naturally thinking about how they need to have accidental death insurance. Life insurance companies, though, are attempting to create a desire for life insurance with advertising that shows pictures of children and asks "If anything happens to you, who will pay for
29700-583: The shaping of wanted behavior that requires conscious thought, and ultimately requires learning. Punishment and reinforcement are the two principal ways in which operant conditioning occurs. Punishment is used to reduce unwanted behavior, and ultimately (from the learner's perspective) leads to avoidance of the punishment, not necessarily avoidance of the unwanted behavior. Punishment is not an appropriate way to increase wanted behavior for animals or humans. Punishment can be divided into two subcategories, positive punishment and negative punishment. Positive punishment
29880-477: The spinal cord as a message that is then transmitted back through the body, tracing a path called the reflex arc . Reflexes are similar to fixed action patterns in that most reflexes meet the criteria of a fixed action pattern. However, a fixed action pattern can be processed in the brain as well; a male stickleback 's instinctive aggression towards anything red during his mating season is such an example. Examples of instinctive behaviours in humans include many of
30060-508: The stream of desire for sense-pleasures must be cut eventually, a practitioner on the path to liberation is encouraged by the Buddha to "generate desire" for the fostering of skillful qualities and the abandoning of unskillful ones. For an individual to effect his or her liberation, the flow of sense-desire must be cut completely; however, while training, he or she must work with motivational processes based on skillfully applied desire. According to
30240-426: The strength of response to a single stimulus due to repeated exposure to that stimulus." This definition exempts the changes caused by sensory adaptation , fatigue , or injury. Non-associative learning can be divided into habituation and sensitization . Habituation is an example of non-associative learning in which one or more components of an innate response (e.g., response probability, response duration) to
30420-403: The subject's reasoning or behavior. Desires we engage in and try to realize are occurrent. But we have many desires that are not relevant to our present situation and do not influence us currently. Such desires are called standing or dispositional . They exist somewhere in the back of our minds and are different from not desiring at all despite lacking causal effects at the moment. If Dhanvi
30600-516: The tendency of attention to keep returning to the desired object as the defining feature of desires. Learning-based theories define desires in terms of their tendency to promote reward-based learning , for example, in the form of operant conditioning . Functionalist theories define desires in terms of the causal roles played by internal states while interpretationist theories ascribe desires to persons or animals based on what would best explain their behavior. Holistic theories combine various of
30780-530: The term instinct appeared to have become outmoded for introductory textbooks on human psychology. The book Instinct: An Enduring Problem in Psychology (1961) selected a range of writings about the topic. In a classic paper published in 1972, the psychologist Richard Herrnstein wrote: "A comparison of McDougall's theory of instinct and Skinner's reinforcement theory —representing nature and nurture—shows remarkable, and largely unrecognized, similarities between
30960-457: The term "pejoratively to connote an unrealistic, bathos-filled, campy tale of romance or domestic situations with stereotypical characters (often including a central female character) that would directly appeal to feminine audiences." Also called "women's movies", "weepies", tearjerkers, or "chick flicks". "Melodrama… is Hollywood's fairly consistent way of treating desire and subject identity", as can be seen in well-known films such as Gone with
31140-399: The topic of mathematics. Daily life experiences take place in the workforce, family life, and any other situation that may arise during one's lifetime. Informal learning is voluntary from the learner's viewpoint, and may require making mistakes and learning from them. Informal learning allows the individual to discover coping strategies for difficult emotions that may arise while learning. From
31320-435: The two is that desires are directed at one object while preferences concern a comparison between two alternatives, of which one is preferred to the other. The focus on preferences instead of desires is very common in the field of decision theory . It has been argued that desire is the more fundamental notion and that preferences are to be defined in terms of desires. For this to work, desire has to be understood as involving
31500-496: The viewpoint that information behaviour has an instinctive basis is grounded in the latest thinking on human behaviour. Furthermore, she notes that "behaviors such as cooperation, sexual behavior, child rearing and aesthetics are [also] seen as 'evolved psychological mechanisms' with an instinctive basis." Spink adds that Steven Pinker similarly asserts that language acquisition is instinctive in humans in his book The Language Instinct (1994). In 1908, William McDougall wrote about
31680-509: The way of her romantic desires. E.M. Forster 's novels use homoerotic codes to describe same-sex desire and longing. Close male friendships with subtle homoerotic undercurrents occur in every novel, which subverts the conventional, heterosexual plot of the novels. In the Gothic-themed Dracula , Stoker depicts the theme of desire which is coupled with fear. When the character Lucy is seduced by Dracula, she describes her sensations in
31860-407: The world actually is, desires aim to change the world by representing how the world should be. These two modes of representation have been termed mind-to-world and world-to-mind direction of fit respectively. Desires can be either positive, in the sense that the subject wants a desirable state to be the case, or negative, in the sense that the subject wants an undesirable state not to be the case. It
32040-419: The world, learn the rules, and learn to interact through play. Lev Vygotsky agrees that play is pivotal for children's development, since they make meaning of their environment through playing educational games. For Vygotsky, however, play is the first form of learning language and communication, and the stage where a child begins to understand rules and symbols. This has led to a view that learning in organisms
32220-419: Was recently also demonstrated in garden pea plants. Another influential person in the world of classical conditioning is John B. Watson . Watson's work was very influential and paved the way for B.F. Skinner 's radical behaviorism. Watson's behaviorism (and philosophy of science) stood in direct contrast to Freud and other accounts based largely on introspection. Watson's view was that the introspective method
32400-462: Was too subjective and that we should limit the study of human development to directly observable behaviors. In 1913, Watson published the article "Psychology as the Behaviorist Views", in which he argued that laboratory studies should serve psychology best as a science. Watson's most famous, and controversial, experiment was " Little Albert ", where he demonstrated how psychologists can account for
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