(Lorenz) Animal Studies of Attachment

• Lorenz tested Imprinting - birds forming a strong bond with and following their mother shortly after hatching.
• Lorenz (1935) Procedure - Greylag goose eggs were randomly divided - half taken to be hatched by Lorenz and half hatched by the biological mother. In later studies, he varied the time between hatching and when the gosling first observed a moving object.
• Lorenz FOUND goslings he hatched imprinted on him. Lorenz placed all goslings in a box. When goslings were released from the box, goslings who'd imprinted on him found and continued to follow him.
• Lorenz found goslings had a critical period of around 32 hours - if a gosling didn't see a large moving object to imprint on in these hours, they lost the ability to imprint.
• Lorenz's research suggests imprinting is a strong evolutionary/biological feature of attachment in certain birds.