What refers to an inborn pattern of behavior in animals?

Instinct refers to an innate or inborn pattern of behavior that is characteristic of a particular species. These behaviors are typically automatic and triggered by specific stimuli from the environment. For example, many animals have instinctual behaviors such as migration, mating rituals, or nurturing their young without prior experience or learning.

In contrast to instinct, learning involves acquiring new behaviors or knowledge through experience, which is not an inherent trait but developed over time. Imprinting is a specific type of learning, often observed in young animals, where they become attached to the first moving object they encounter, typically their mother, shortly after birth. Conditioning involves creating an association between a behavior and a reward or punishment, which is a learned response rather than inborn. Thus, instinct is the term that best describes unlearned, automatic behaviors that arise from genetic programming.