Lorenz A03

• What is a weakness

  -Sluckin (1966) conducted research with ducklings and successfully imprinted them onto himself while keeping one duckling in isolation for five days

  -this duckling was still able to imprint
• How is this a weakness?

  -Sluckin concluded there was a sensitive period rather than critical when imprinting was best likely to occur but the attachments could still be formed later.

  -suggests the critical period is not as rigid as Lorenz suggested
• What is another weakness (imprinting)

  -Guiton (1966) found that chickens that had imprinted on yellow washing gloves would try to mate with them later in life as predicted by lorenz

  -however with experience they learned to prefer mating with chickens

  -suggests that imprinting is not as permanent as Lorenz suggested
• What is another weakness?

  -Questions whether Lorenz work should be generalised to humans

  -mammal attachment may be different to birds

  -barnett argues that humans are socially biologically and cognitively different to humans

  -therefore research is not applicable