Why do people take their own lives? To survive is the most basic human instinct; to take one’s own life is against this instinct. Imagine you are standing on the rooftop of a tall building and there is nothing between you and the fall to death! The normal response is fear and the step to take is to walk back. What does it take to overcome that fear and to jump down? The most important and commo...

Evolutionary theory and empirical studies suggest that many animals, including humans, have a genetic predisposition to acquire and retain property. This is hardly surprising because survival is closely bound up with the acquisition of things: food, shelter, tools and territory. But the root of these general urges may also run to quite specific and detailed rules about property acquisition, ret...

Hysteria is still too little understood, and too much the subject ?f loose thinking, even by psychiatrists. Any attempt to clarify our knowledge is therefore welcome : and the more so, when it is backed by an experience and an erudition such as Dr. Kretschmer's. And indeed we can cordially recommend his book to all doctors, who will find his concepts very helpful for themselves, and (in some ca...

In the face of contradictory information, people must rely on their instincts as much as the facts to size up potential threats.

Did you know that babies are born with the ability to attach themselves to the breast without anyone helping them? A child or an adult has the instinct to move or dance to music. Babies have the instinct to find the breast and suckle. Watch your incredible baby latch on with little or no help and you will be amazed. You will quickly become confident and breastfeeding will become as easy as danc...

Similarly in civil life people who are temperamentally or physically unfit for their job in life become Neurotic. Any instinct may be at the root of the neurosis, but the commonest are the instinct of selfPreservation and the sexual instinct. In civil life the neurosis is much less effective for the attainment ?f its end than it was during the war. It is not a rational way out of the unpleasant...

One of the central claims of Norenzayan et al.'s article is that supernatural monitoring and intergroup competition have facilitated the rise of large-scale prosocial religions. Although the authors outline in detail how social instincts that govern supernatural monitoring are honed by cultural evolution and have given rise to Big Gods, they do not provide a clear explanation for the success of...