Four Fs (evolution)

In evolutionary psychology, people often speak of the four Fs which are said to be the four basic and most primal drives (motivations or instincts) that animals (including humans) are evolutionarily adapted to have, follow, and achieve: fighting, fleeing, feeding and mating (a more polite synonym of the word "fucking").[1]

The list of the four activities appears to have been first introduced in the late 1950s and early 1960s in articles by psychologist Karl H. Pribram, with the fourth entry in the list being known by terms such as "sex"[2]: 11, 13  or occasionally "fornicating",[3]: 155  although he himself did not use the term "four Fs".

Conventionally, the four Fs were described as adaptations which helped the organism to find food, avoid danger, defend its territory, et cetera. However, in his book The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins argued that adaptive traits do not evolve to benefit individual organisms, but to benefit the passing on of genes.[4]

  1. ^ Kurzban, Robert (2011). Why Everyone (Else) Is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind. Princeton University Press. p. 159. ISBN 978-1-4008-3599-7. Retrieved April 24, 2022.
  2. ^ Pribram, Karl H. (January 1960). "A Review of Theory in Physiological Psychology" (PDF). Annual Review of Psychology. 60 (1): 1–40. doi:10.1146/annurev.ps.11.020160.000245.
  3. ^ Pribram, Karl H. (1958). "Chapter 7: Comparative Neurology and the Evolution of Behavior" (PDF). In Roe, Anne; Simpson, George Gaylord (eds.). Behavior and Evolution. Yale University Press. pp. 140–164.
  4. ^ Linquist, Stefan Paul (2010). The evolution of culture. Farnham: Ashgate. ISBN 978-0754627616. OCLC 619142755.