The hypothalamus responds to these motivations by regulating activity in the endocrine system to release hormones to alter the behaviour of the animal. In the case of vertebrates, this list corresponds to the motivational behaviours that drive the activity in the hypothalamus, namely: fighting, fleeing, feeding and sexual functioning. 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. Pribram, with the fourth entry in the list being known by terms such as 'sex' : 11, 13 or occasionally 'fornicating', : 155 although he himself did not use the term 'four Fs'.Ĭonventionally, the four Fs were described as adaptations which helped the organism to find food, avoid danger, defend its territory, et cetera. 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. Mr Tsay's older sister Brenda, who runs the business, said the footage showed the gunman's fierce struggle to keep control of his weapon.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 (the final word beginning with the letter 'M' rather than 'F' is a reticent allusion to the cruder synonym ' fuck'). Los Angeles County sheriff Robert Luna has said two people disarmed the suspect in Alhambra - but Mr Tsay and his family, who still run the ballroom, say the video footage shows he alone grappled with the killer. They said they believe the gunman intended to carry out a similar massacre in Alhambra, and credited those who disarmed him with saving lives. Police have said the reason behind the attack, which came as Asian communities around the world celebrated the Lunar New Year holiday, remained a mystery. Hours later he was dead, shooting himself inside a white van in Torrance, several miles to the south, on Sunday afternoon as police moved to arrest him.įive men and five women, all in their 50s or 60s, were killed by the gunman in Monterey Park on Saturday night. He immediately pointed it back at him and yelled 'Go, get the hell out of here,' he told the newspaper. Mr Tsay and his family said that security footage showed the pair struggling for around 90 seconds before he was able to seize the gun from the suspect. 'From his body language, his facial expression, his eyes, he was looking for people,' Mr Tsay told the Times. He said he had never seen a gun in real life - but that it was clear the gunman was there not to rob the place but to kill.

Mr Tsay, whose grandparents founded the ballroom, did not know that the suspect, identified by police as Huu Can Tran, was believed to have killed 10 people and wounded 10 others just minutes earlier at another dance hall in nearby Monterey Park. He lunged at the man and grabbed the barrel of the gun, beginning the fight of his life. 'That moment, it was primal instinct,' he said.

Man primal instinct