What is instinctive drift?

Instinctive drift is a term used in psychology to describe the tendency of animals, including humans, to revert to instinctual behaviors rather than learned behaviors when performing a complex task. This phenomenon was first observed and documented by psychologists Keller and Marian Breland in the 1960s.

Instinctive drift occurs when an animal's natural instincts and predispositions interfere with its ability to learn and perform a trained behavior. This can happen even when the animal has been successfully trained to perform the desired behavior through conditioning or reinforcement.

One famous example of instinctive drift is when raccoons were trained to deposit coins into a piggy bank. Despite being successfully trained to perform this precise behavior, the raccoons frequently reverted to their instinctual behavior of rubbing the coins together and washing them in water, rather than depositing them in the bank.

Overall, instinctive drift highlights the complex interplay between learned behaviors and instinctual behaviors in animals, and serves as a reminder that innate tendencies can sometimes override learned behaviors, especially in complex tasks.