Quote Originally Posted by HoreTore View Post
You're talking about strong drives.

The psychological definition of instints is behaviour that cannot be changed. Anything that can be changed is a drive. Humans have evolved beyond instincts, and we have a thought process(conscious or unconscious) before we do the things you believe to be an instinct. Protecting an infant definitely involve a decision to be made, and we often make the decision not to protect said infant. This would not have happened if it was an instinct.

EDIT: Basically, the more complex a creatures neural system is, the less instinctive behavior it will have. The reason is evolutional, it is clearly preferable not to have instincts, as these force actions. Being able to make a decision means you can adapt your actions, and the advanced neural system allows you to make a decision. Humans, having developed an extremely complex neural system, has evolved away from instincts.
Decisions are myth anyway, you should upgrade you knowledge on that subject and read Montmorency's thread about the Blind Brain Theory, which explains that decisions are just our TTBS fooling itself to think it could change anything about the inevitable output that is merely a predetermined result of the input we got.

Edit: I see Monty himself was faster.