Lorenz's Imprinting study

• Aim: to investigate the process of imprinting
• Imprinting = where young animals would follow and form an attachment to the first, large moving object they encountered
• Procedure:

  • Gosling eggs divided into 2 groups (one group left with natural mother, one in an incubator)
  • After hatching, the first thing they saw was Lorenz, following behaviour was recorded
  • Marked all goslings, in order to determine its group
  • All were placed underneath an upturned box
  • Box removed and Lorenz recorded their behaviour
• Lorenz's findings:

  • After birth, naturally hatched goslings followed mother, incubated goslings followed Lorenz
  • After release from the box, both groups repeated their behaviour from after birth
  • Imprinting only occurred within a critical period of between 4-25 hours after hatching
  • the goslings which imprinted on humans would attempt to mate with humans in their adult life
• Lorenz's Conclusions:

  • Imprinting is irreversible, implying it is under biological control
  • There is a continuity between early attachment and future relationships
  • the idea of a critical period for attachment influenced other psychologists
• Limitation of Lorenz's study:

  It is not possible to extrapolate (generalise) from animals to humans as the nature and complexity of attachment bonds in geese is much different to humans. Furthermore, imprinting applies to precocial animals (mobile after birth) whereas humans are altricial (born at an early stage of development). This means that Lorenz's conclusions may not be applicable to humans.
• Limitation of Lorenz's study: Study may be considered unethical. This is because the process of imprinting geese on a human prevented them from having 'normal' relationships with other geese. This could've lead to negative emotional impacts and therefore causing the geese psychological harm.
• Strength of Lorenz's study: However, the research may be justifiable as it has influenced Bowlby's monotropic theory of attachment and the idea that critical periods are important in terms of adoption. This may justify the unethical nature of the experiment.