Chapter 6

And What of Man?
 

What of human beings? Do "animal" behavior patterns still operate in our case? Are our forms of movement and recognition hereditarily determined, too-in other words, are we programmed in advance? Are we also impelled and controlled by mechanisms within our brain which operate without our even being aware of the fact?
This question is obviously of great importance to every individual human being. After all, each of us imagines himself to be the possessor of an ego which controls his manifold actions. If it turns out that our actions are partly programmed and thus beyond the scope of our free will, it is certainly important to know how these automatic controls function, how and on what occasions they come into play, and how they can be influenced should the need arise.
The information in the foregoing chapters indicates that the study of animal behavior offers certain insights which can help us view many phenomena of human behavior from new and different angles. If we learn how, on the basis of innate cerebral structures, animals are encouraged in certain very specific series of actions and checked in others, we must be reminded of what we refer to as our own urges and inhibition processes which often run counter to the true will of our ego and of which we are not always in control. If we learn how specific inclination, in animals, is affected by external or internal stimuli, or by spontaneous processes within the nerve cells, this

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recalls how our own mood is often affected by environment-by other people, changes of scene, or the state of the weather; how processes within our bodies also play their part – illness, drugs, the physiological processes peculiar to menstruation in women, or the disinhibiting effects of alcohol; and how we are sometimes prone to moods which can substantially affect our actions without our being able to give any concrete reasons for them. If we hear how, in animals, appetencies emerge and stimulus thresholds simultaneously diminish – a process which leads to increasing restlessness and concentration upon the quest for fulfillment of some particular urge or other – we may be reminded how, in our own case, our perceptions are distorted when we are hungry, sexually aroused, or frightened; how we then, to an increasing extent, think exclusively of food, seek a mate, or see ourselves overwhelmed by dangers and difficulties. If we hear that excitation can "jump the track," we may be reminded of Freud's doctrine that, when man's sexual urge is denied an adequate outlet, this pent-up force or libido can sublimate itself into very different activities. If an economist considers the stimulus threshold and accumulated stimulus phenomenon, he may perhaps recall man's relationship to what he buys and may wonder if the laws propounded by Herman Gossen are not explicable in terms of just such a basic phenomenon. If we hear of the phenomenon of imprinting, we are again reminded of Freud and of psychoanalysis, which long ago indicated that adult behavior is determined during certain sensitive periods of childhood development. Finally, if we hear of hereditarily determined learning dispositions, our thoughts may return to Kant and the categories to which our mind is chained a priori – or, equally, to the subject of human customs and traditions. The question then arises whether these are merely fortuitous parallels, or whether the human mind, being hereditarily fixed, tends in just such directions.
So much for one side of the coin. The other is that we are to date virtually unable to pronounce upon the question of to what extent human behavior is hereditarily determined or influenced, simply because there has been almost no research in this direction. Human beings have hitherto been studied from another angle and the phenomena of our behavior considered

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with different questions in mind. Moreover, with human beings it is all but impossible to solve the problem of "innate or acquired?" by rearing individuals in isolation. The only such recorded experiment was conducted by Frederick II, the thirteenth-century ruler of Sicily, who wished to discover if Hebrew, Greek, or some other tongue were the primordial language of mankind. He arranged for a number of children to be reared by foster parents who were forbidden to address a word to them. The children died. Certain indications, but only of a limited nature, are afforded by congenitally blind and dumb children, who have great difficulty learning many things by experience. Cerebral stimulation, which might also prove informative, has only been tried in exceptional cases so far. One of the few methods of isolating the innate components of our behavior is to compare candid motion picture films of behavior patterns in various parts of the world If such films display essential similarities, this would suggest the presence of an innate human behavior mechanism. Children have frequently been filmed unawares, but there is little similar documentation on adult behavior.
For all the definite parallels with animal behavior which exist, scientific pronouncements about them must remain purely speculative until research has produced concrete evidence. However, we cannot disregard the high probability that true functional relationships exist. Where the physical characteristics of animal organisms are concerned, there is ample evidence that their further development and modification were extremely gradual. Lorenz's experiments have shown that it was the same with instincts, though here the process of change may be accelerated by domestication. These biological facts speak for themselves. They render it highly improbable that basic attributes such as the main instincts have undergone any substantial change during the relatively short span of human evolution. In the case of man – particularly in view of his self-awareness, imaginative faculty, and superior capacity for learning – quite different conditions undoubtedly applied. On the other hand, it is extremely unlikely that man, at a single stroke, surmounted and transcended the whole of the animal heritage whose development can be traced to him.

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As for reflexes, there can be little doubt that our organism is largely controlled by those that are already laid down by our hereditary formula. Wholly divorced from our consciousness, they regulate the functions of our internal organs and much of our behavior toward our environment. Heartbeat, respiration, blinking, and pupillary reflex are examples of such functions. With us, as with animals, many functions are controlled by regulatory cycles (that is, reflex feedback systems). We, too, exhibit reafference, the peculiarly complicated reflex system explored by von Holst. Only in the rarest instances – e.g., respiration – can we also influence these reactions by an effort of will. Most of them are beyond our ken and control and in this sense form a sort of id rather than genuine ingredients of our psychic ego. Thus, far from being controlled by our ego, innate reflexes are the act of an id which is independent thereof.
That a parliament of instincts is at work within us, too, may be assumed with a high degree of certainty and should be apparent to each individual from personal experience. Thanks to our intellectual ability, however, an entirely new phenomenon supervened: Existing forms of innate and acquired behavior came under special control. Animals are governed by a ministry like directorial hierarchy (acquired behavior patterns, too, being pressed into the service of the various instincts), whereas in man the missing "head of government" has been supplied. Our conscious processes of thought, deliberation, and inference represent a level of cerebral integration which is superior to other "departments." These we regard as our real ego, and it is their decisions, based on individual experience, which constitutes our free will proper. But how powerful is this authority? How far can it prevail against individual members of the parliament of instincts, given that "differences of opinion" arise? To what extent does this supreme authority ally itself with one impulse or another? Furthermore, with learning dispositions and imprinting, how free is our ego in its emergence, and to what extent is its development and evolution likewise determined and influenced by heredity?
It is especially evident with the sexual urge that this depends upon innate impulsion mechanisms and does not, for ex-

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ample, owe its origination to learning processes. Freud, himself, pointed out that although capable of controlling, restraining and sublimating the sexual urge, human willpower can never wholly eliminate it. We will discuss other extremely powerful human impulses which are probably likewise innate in greater detail at a later stage. They, too, are characterized by an uncontrollable endogenous growth of excitation and will, if deprived of fulfillment, result in restlessness and an active quest for a "short-circuiting" stimulus situation. If that proves equally fruitless, it can lead, in man, to other phenomena of a partly pathological nature.
As might be expected, few hereditary coordinations are represented in man. It is a characteristic of the mammals – as opposed to birds, reptiles, and fish, which still possess long series of hereditary coordinations – that they have freed themselves from the restraints imposed by hereditarily fixed motor patterns, thereby gaining in adaptive modifiability. Mammals take correspondingly longer to develop, on the other hand, and this necessitates prolonged brood protection. Man, who has become the learner par excellence, requires a particularly long period of "brood tending."
Some hereditary coordinations are, however, detectable in man. The newborn baby comes equipped with the oral movements of sucking, with the search automatism which leads it to the mother's breast, with the ability to grip and cling, cough and cry. The basic movement of walking is innate in man, as becomes apparent when a newborn baby is held upright above a flat surface. It advances each foot in turn and will even describe climbing movements when confronted by a step. Expressive reactions such as trembling, turning pale, and uttering cries of pain are also innate in man, as are the rudiments of human facial expression, which will also be discussed at greater length in due course.
In the sensory realm, by contrast, human behavior appears to be influenced far more by innate mechanisms. For instance, we react very definitely to key stimuli in the field of chemical sensory perception. The ingestion of rotting substances or excrement is detrimental to our health, and we react unfavorably to them by reason of key stimuli in the olfactory domain. In

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the optical domain, fear reactions are elicited by darkness, steep drops, and large approaching bodies. These, too, are probably innate.
We do not know whether the various reactions of animals are linked with emotions similar to our own. Many observations suggest so, but this is not provable scientifically. Being unable to communicate with animals, we cannot make any pronouncement about their subjective sensations. In our own case, feelings of pleasure and displeasure – contentment or discontent, happiness or unhappiness – are linked with our various urges. If we can satisfy them, pleasant sensations accrue to us; if not, we suffer physically or "mentally."
Certain movements on the part of other human beings represent peculiarly strong key stimuli from our point of view. We speak here of a mood transmission effect, one very clear example being gestures conveying fear. If a man exhibits fear, he can transmit his fear to others. We feel incomparably safer in our modern world than the man of a 1,000 or 10,000 years ago, yet we still react acutely to signs of panic. Especially when we are standing in a dense crowd, a sudden move to escape will give rise to an urge to join in a reaction which is certainly not the result of rational deliberation. Feelings of enthusiasm and joy are also transmissible, which is one essential reason why people are attracted to public festivities and mass entertainments. If we see other people eating (and are not completely satiated ourselves), our own appetite will be stimulated even if we have no desire to eat. If we see other people streaming in a certain direction, the spectacle arouses our own curiosity. If other people yawn, their weariness may transmit itself to us. Finally, the sight of looters racing through the streets has swept away many a man who would, under normal circumstances, have been utterly opposed to such behavior.
Lorenz gave an instructive example of our hereditarily determined response to releasers in his "baby face" diagram. When we find a young child cute or sweet – in our subjective estimation –
we are responding to a number of very specific characteristics, peculiar to young children, which combine in accordance with the rules of the accumulated stimulus phenomenon. Lorenz lists the following characteristics under this

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heading: a relatively large and high-domed head, large eyes situated very low down, chubby cheeks, short plump extremities, and ungainly movements. We transfer this criterion to animals, too, and find them equally lovable and cute when they display similar characteristics. From the ethological standpoint, modern doll manufacture represents an intensive effort to produce effective dummies for the eliciting of these particular human reactions. Both in dolls and toy animals (one has only to think of Disney products) these effective characteristics are – not only stressed but exaggerated, thereby creating supernormal dummies to which almost everyone responds.
Specialists in behavioral research likewise regard the female breast as a releaser – or to put it more crudely, a signaling apparatus. That the milk-yielding function is not decisive to the special development of this part of the female anatomy may be inferred from the fact that a small breast-as in the monkeys quite sufficient for this purpose. Rather, the conspicuous

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shape of the female human breast acts as an effective pleaser upon the sexual proclivity of the male. Modern advertising and the history of fashion afford plenty of indications that man has succeeded in devising supernormal dummies in this field, too.
Going a stage further, Lorenz advanced the theory that our peculiar aesthetic sense can be traced largely to an innate evaluation of the basic proportions and characteristics of the human body. There is no doubt that our appreciation of beauty – when viewing a landscape, for instance –
depends upon other basic factors as well, but there is equally little doubt that an innate recognition of the robust and well-proportioned human body plays an important part in such evaluations. If this is true, however, many questions must be differently formulated. The question "Why is this beautiful and that not?" becomes the quite different question "Why do we human beings regard this particular thing as beautiful and that as ugly?" This would mean that the explanation of the aesthetic phenomenon lies not in the form of the stimuli but in the formation of the nerve structures that receive them. Consequently, there would be no such thing as a beauty independent of human evaluation.
In an analogous way, Lorenz ascribes our moral sense to modes of reaction which are already innate in us. He points out that certain situations elicit very specific reactions from us, whether we like it or not. The maltreatment of a child or the bullying of a defenseless woman provokes a sense of outrage, whereas a man's self-sacrifice on behalf of his family, friends, or country tends to arouse our admiration. Lorenz further points out that we cannot prevent ourselves from reacting in the prescribed fashion even when such scenes are presented to us on film in an extremely crude-indeed, trashy-manner. Even when we watch them several times in succession we can observe a renewal of the same effect on each occasion. The reaction is quite automatic and uncontrolled. Lorenz attributes it to the workings of the social instincts which have grown up among human beings in the same way as they have done in a variety of social animals.
In our case-still according to Lorenz-these instincts are in the process of involution because of man's self-domestication,

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which means that he shields himself just as artificially against enemies and climate as he does his domestic animals. Although not as pronounced in us as in monkeys, these instincts still find clear expression in corresponding reactions.
This awkward yet interesting question sheds quite another light on the problem of human morality. Many religions, Christianity included, regard the human conscience as an innate faculty, but definitely not one that we share with animals. Indeed it is precisely this conscience, this inherent morality, which renders the thought of man's animal ancestry so unacceptable to so many people. They see this form of human evaluation as something unique. If it should turn out that it is not a human peculiarity – indeed, that impulses of this nature have actually become weaker in us than in the animals related to us – it would mean that currently accepted patterns of thought had been disrupted on a truly massive scale.
Publications dealing with behavioral research often present comparisons between man and beast which are not really valid and should therefore be rejected. For example, von Holst observed that with the wrasse – a fish which lives in shoals – a specimen will become the leader of its shoal if surgically deprived of its forebrain. The forebrainless fish is thereby disinhibited and loses its shoal-forming reactions. It swims where it pleases, and the shoal tags along behind it. Any account which concentrates on effect can logically thus assert: "You see, that's the way things are – the masses always follow the brainless ones!" It is not hard to see that this analogy will not stand serious examination. Wrasse shoals, in which no one fish has individual knowledge of another, are not susceptible of comparison with human communities, nor is it a criterion of the human being that he invariably follows brainless or uninhibited individuals unquestioningly. If, in the course of history, irresponsible men have sometimes managed to induce the masses to follow them, their success was certainly not attributable to their defects, but to their talents.
Other phenomena, by contrast, may well permit of comparison. There is undoubtedly food for thought in the fact that in many species of animals the male's sexual urge is positively correlated with aggressive behavior and negatively correlated

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with fear, whereas the exact opposite applies to the female. Much the same holds good in the case of human beings. In men, a mood of aggression intensifies sexual appetency, whereas fear diminishes it. In women, aggression diminishes sexual preparedness, whereas fear can intensify it. This may be a genuine relationship (in the sense of a homology) or a parallel development (in the sense of a convergence). In either case, it is a noteworthy functional relationship which probably came into being as a result of similar preconditions.
Another instructive parallel is provided by the infantilisms which occur between sexual partners. It is a widespread phenomenon among mammals and birds that the male activates the female's brood-tending instinct in order to approach her and break down her individual barrier. In practice, this means that the male goes through various behavior patterns peculiar to the young of the species, thereby eliciting suitably friendly reactions from the female and facilitating sexual advances. Females, in their turn, activate the protective instinct of the male in order to reinforce bond formation. Analogous procedures can be observed in human couples. Here, too, there is a resort to words and gestures usually employed toward infants. Fondling the other party, soothing him or her with caresses, tending the skin, feeding, the bestowal of childish pet names – all these derive from the behavioral repertory of brood tending and represent, in man's case too, a roundabout way of overcoming a partner's inhibitions by means of entirely different instinctive actions.
One form of animal behavior from which vital information can be. gleaned is rooted in the aggressive urge. This is widespread in the animal kingdom and manifests itself in extremely hostile and aggressive behavior toward members of the same species. In his book On Aggression, Lorenz gives a detailed account of how this instinct, which is so evidently directed against fellow members of a species, succeeded in asserting itself; of its selective value; and the extent to which it does, ultimately, benefit the species – a subject to which we shall return later. Lorenz lists the aggressive urge, together with those of feeding, procreation, and flight, as one of the four most important human instincts and takes the view that it developed with par-

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ticular intensity during the early phase of our evolution. This instinct has lost much of its significance in the modem world, with its legal guarantees of security. Indeed, it has become a disadvantage to us because, in a well-ordered society, we lack the opportunity to work it off. This manifests itself in sporadic moods of aggression or irritability which originate within us and are not occasioned by our environment.
If a pair of cichlids are isolated in an aquarium from other members of their species, the male's aggressive urge turns against the female because there are no other males to attack. This may even result in the male's killing the female. If another male is placed in the aquarium, even behind a sheet of glass, the male will violently attack its fellow male and turn into an amicable mate. Cichlids are certainly not to be compared with human beings, but the functional relationship cannot be ignored.
If human beings living at close quarters – whether in the marital home, a military camp, or elsewhere – cannot work off their aggression on something outside, they will turn on their partners or companions.
Can our behavior be improved by an awareness of this state of affairs? Obviously it can. But a mood of irritation cannot be entirely suppressed by the intellect because anger is an instinctive and uncontrollable emotion. What we can attain by an exercise of intellect is the ability not to overrate ourselves in such situations nor take ourselves too seriously.
Similarly, knowledge of animal behavior can help the human being to a better understanding of himself in other respects as well.
 

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