Oh, I'm not talking about situations where fully functioning adults are putting real thought into decisions. Career choice, healthy eating, etc etc. I'm talking about situations where individuals are reacting outside of 'rational' decision-making. What is the driving force, then?
Two men in a physical altercation at a bar over a woman.
A woman who kills her partner in a jealous rage.
The impulse candy bar purchase at the checkout.
The 3 year old girl who chooses which toy to play with that morning. The doll or the building blocks?...
None of these necessarily demonstrate "instinctual" behavior.
Two men can get into a fight because they'll lose face if they don't. Let the other guy take the girl and you're a pussy. Of course you could argue that this behavior developed as a result of competition between males playing an important role in human evolution and I wouldn't argue that. That doesn't change that we are
taughtto behave in ways that continue to reflect obsolete or vestigial instincts. It
seemslogical to say that instinct is the puppet master behind our behavior, especially since it can be proven that they did play an essential role in getting us to this point. However, that's not how the brain works. Not any more, at least.
Let's look at some of your other examples:
A woman kills her partner in a jealous rage because society tells her he should be loyal to her and her alone. Even if jealousy is instinctual, she learned the "rules" of social interaction and that provided the framework for the scenario. If society taught her that polygamy was the norm, she would never have gotten jealous.
Even an "impulse" candy purchase is shaped by society. "It's just a dollar." "I worked hard today, so I earned a little reward." "I haven't had one of these in a while." "I'm not having dinner for a few hours so this should hold me over." "They're two for one so I'll bring one home for my wife." We are raised in an environment where candy is readily available and serves a purpose, so even if it seems like instinct pushed you to buy that candy, it's still learned behavior.
The three year old girl is choosing from among the toys already selected and purchased by her parents. She's sitting there in her pink jammies and, whether she's aware of it or not, she acts in ways that she learns result in positive feedback from those around her. They give her dolls, she plays with dolls. Now, if she is inclined to play with blocks and receives positive reinforcement for doing so, great. She's still going to see other little girls wearing pink and playing with dolls and little boys wearing blue and playing with trucks. Her behavior and perception is still being shaped by what society tells her is normal.
Now, that little girl keeps doing this long before she is capable of knowing the long-term consequences of submitting to her instinctually-driven choice of toy. She never really develops an affinity toward activities that require acute spatial awareness early on. Her instinctually driven behaviour as an infant has had long term impacts on her life. Would you say, then, that biological behaviour influences do have an impact on things like career choice/aptitude?
I'd love to see research on that. Super interesting.
Even if the choice of a doll over blocks was "instinctual" (in that it was based solely on one's innate desire and not rational decision-making), it was society that put that doll there in the first place because society already decided she would be inclined to play with it. If she was raised in a society where boys and girls weren't color-coded and
taughtto behave differently, she might have chosen a toy truck over either the doll or the blocks. Just because society reflects the instincts that helped us evolve, that doesn't mean these instincts still play a vital, or even relevant, role.
