罗松林的回答：From:http://grammarist.com/usage/instinctive-instinctual/ At root, instinctive and instinctual are essentially the same; both mean (1) of or arising from the instinct, or (2) pertaining to the instinct. There is a subtle difference between them in some writing on psychology published in the last century. In these contexts, instinctive describes any unlearned response no matter how basic. For example, the fight-or-flight response to danger is instinctive, as is the tendency for babies to cry when hungry. Instinctual, meanwhile, describes feelings, thoughts, behaviors, and tendencies born of deep, motivational forces. In other words, things that are instinctual tend to be much more complex than things that are merely instinctive. Still, while this distinction is important in some areas of psychology, instinctive is often used where instinctual would also apply. Outside science, there are many claims about the supposed difference between the words: that instinctiveis for isolated behaviors and instinctual is for patterns of behavior; that instinctive is more literal andinstinctual is more figurative (i.e., synonymous with intuitive or deeply engrained); that the opposite is the case; that instinctive does not necessarily relate to instinct and is often synonymous with reflexive;that instinctive is more British and instinctual is more American; that instinctual is preferred in scientific usage, while instinctive is the popular term; and that instinctual pertains to human psychological instincts and instinctive to more animal instincts. Any one of these distinctions might be useful if it were borne out broadly in the language, but none is. What we can say, however, is that instinctive is far more common and many centuries older. Instinctualcame about early in the 20th century and initially appeared mostly in texts on psychology—the word appears especially often in translations of Freud and in references to his work—so it makes sense that the fine distinction between the words is now observed in that field. 无所谓》》的回答：instinctual是心理学上的术语 |
