Lorenz's research

• Lorenz's study on imprinting-

  Procedure: Lorenz randomly divided a large clutch of goose eggs. Half the eggs were hatched with the mother goose in their natural environment and the other half in an incubator where the 1st moving object they saw was Lorenz.
• Lorenz's study on imprinting-

  Findings: the incubator group followed Lorenz everywhere whereas the other group followed the mother everywhere. When the groups got mixed up they continued to follow the original group they were in. This is due to imprinting which is where bird species that are mobile from birth attach and follow the 1st moving object they see. Lorenz identified a critical period in which the imprinting needs to take place (a few hours after birth). If an attachment is not made in that time then they will never attach themselves to a mother figure
• sexual imprinting-

  In a case study, Lorenz described a peacock that had been reared in the reptile house of a zoo where the 1st moving object it saw was a giant tortoise. As an adult, this bird would only direct courtship behaviour towards giant tortoises.
• Evaluation of Lorenz's research:

  1. Animal studies may not apply to humans.
  2. Research support on imprinting- Guiton(1996) demonstrated that leghorn chicks that were exposed to a yellow glove that fed them became imprinted on the gloves. This showed that animals aren’t born with a predisposition to imprint on a specific object but probably on any moving object present during the critical period.