The fighting responses are called out by a variety of situations.  These situations are definite and the responses to them differ from each other.  In each case the child tries by physical force of some kind, by scratching, kicking, biting, slapping, throwing, and the like, to change the situation into a more agreeable one.  This is true whether he be trying to escape from the restraining arms of his mother or to compel another child to recognize his mastery.  Original nature endows us with the pugnacious instinct on the physical level and in connection with situations which for various reasons annoy us.  If this is to be raised in its manner of response from the physical to the intellectual level, if the occasions calling it out are to be changed from those that merely annoy one to those which involve the rights of others and matters of principle, it must be as a result of education.  Nature provides only this crude root.

Imitation has long been discussed as one of the most important and influential of human instincts.  It has been regarded as a big general tendency to attempt to do whatever one saw any one else doing.  As such a tendency it does not exist.  It is only in certain narrow lines that the tendency to imitate shows itself, such as smiling when smiled at, yelling when others yell, looking and listening, running, crouching, attacking, etc., when others do.  To this extent and in similar situations the tendency to imitate seems to be truly an instinct.  Imitating in other lines, such as writing as another writes, talking, dressing, acting like a friend, trying to use the methods used by others, etc., are a result of experience and education.  The “spontaneous,” “dramatic,” and “voluntary” imitation discussed by some authors are the stages of development of habits of imitation.

The desire to be with others of the same species, the satisfaction at company and the discomfort aroused by solitude, is one of the strongest roots of all social tendencies and customs.  It manifests itself in young babies, and continues a strong force throughout life.  As an instinct it has nothing to do with either being interested in taking one’s share in the duties or pleasures of the group or with being interested in people for their own sakes.  It is merely that company makes one comfortable and solitude annoys one.  Anything further must come as a result of experience.

Motherliness and kindliness have as their characteristic behavior tendencies to respond by instinctive comforting acts to signs of pain, grief, or misery shown by living things, especially, by children, and by the feeling of satisfaction and the sight of happiness in others.  Of course very often these instinctive responses are interfered with by the presence of some other instinct, such as fighting, hunting, ownership, or scorn, but that such tendencies to respond in such situations are a part of the original equipment of man seems beyond dispute.  They are possessed by both sexes and manifest themselves in very early childhood.