mating instinct
Urge to breed
Mating instinct is the innate biological drive to seek sexual partners and reproduce.
The term appears in discussions of animal behavior and evolutionary psychology, often to explain courtship rituals, mate selection, and sexual attraction as hardwired rather than learned: The mating instinct drives salmon to return to their birthplace.
Applied to humans, it can sound reductive or deterministic.
- reproductionCopying or procreation
- desireIntense wanting
- attractionPull toward something
- love at first sightImmediate romantic attraction to stranger
- courtshipSeeking another's romantic favor
arousal · breeding · libido · urge · biological clock · pheromones · lust · drive · heat · rut · seduction · procreation · passion · hormones · fertility · mate · alpha male · primal
mating instinctlearned behavior
Action acquired through experience
cultural conditioning · socialization · rational choice · conscious choice · social learning
mating instinctsurvival instinct
Inborn drive to live
celibacy · asexuality · abstinence · chastity
mating, instinct, mates, mateless, instincts, instinctive, instinctively, instinctual, instinctually