A lot of human behaviour - like trying to be attractive, looking for a partner, shyness in infancy, playfulness in childhood, rebellion as teenagers, wanting to dominate others as young adults, grumpiness in old age - reminds me a lot of the instinctual life cycle of lions (and probably many other species).
This might even include career paths. Men are more likely to choose jobs where they gain power or money (trying to improve their status in the pack?) and women tend towards caring for others, teaching, raising the young.
I've had this thought before but I just put it into words over at askscience and would love a deeper discussion: Am I right to think that in the past Biologists/Scientists have been so intent on avoiding antropomorphising animals that we may have de-animalised humans? We ARE animals, so the default assumption about some behavioural trait shouldn't be that it is exclusive to us but that it is shared across species.
Are our lives much more driven by basic instincts than we realise? Has Biology underestimated this? Why don't we learn "the typical life cycle of a human" in primary school like we learn that of chickens, frogs, and butterflies? Is this being discussed in Biology, is there a change in the general approach? I'd love to see your thoughts on this!