survival instincts
Innate protective urges
Survival instincts are the innate drives that push organisms to stay alive—fight, flight, seeking food and shelter, protecting offspring.
In humans, the term often describes automatic responses to danger: Her survival instincts kicked in and she ran.
Extended to non-physical contexts, it means a knack for self-preservation: His political survival instincts kept him out of the scandal.
- will to liveDrive to keep existing
- situational awarenessPerception of surroundings
- adrenalineEmergency response hormone
- hypervigilanceHeightened threat sensitivity
- fleeingRapid escape from danger
fight-or-flight · fight or flight · life or death · risk assessment · gut feeling · pack dynamics · safety in numbers · resilience · hunting · freeze · playing dead · foraging · self-preservation · intuition · threat detection · hiding · camouflage · cooperation
- lizard brainlizard brain, brainstem, fight or flight, fear response, self-preservation
- animal behavioranimal behavior, instincts, learned behavior, conditioning, social behavior
- ecologyhabitat, ecosystem, balance, niche, food webs
- instinctsprotective instincts, primal urge, fight-or-flight, fight or flight, self-preservation
- intuitive knowledgegut feeling, intuition, tacit knowledge, procedural memory, hunches
- animal traitsfur, tail, claws, teeth, wings
survival instinctsdeath wish
Urge toward self-destruction
recklessness · self-sabotage · fatalism · self-destructive behavior · nihilism
survival instinctslearned behavior
Action acquired through experience
conditioned reflexes · cultural conditioning · learned helplessness · education · experience
survival instinctsself-sacrifice
Surrendering for others' benefit
martyrdom · selflessness · heroic sacrifice · maternal sacrifice · noble death