LORENZ

• What did Lorenz study on animals?

  effect of imprinting
• How did Lorenz study imprinting?

  randomly divided goose eggs

  one half hatched with mother in natural environment

  other half hatched in an incubator where the first moving object was Lorenz
• why did Lorenz mix the geese together?

  to see who they would follow
• what happened when Lorenz placed the geese together?

  the ones that first saw him followed him even when their mother was there
• when does an animal need to imprint?

  within the critical period, if not exposed to moving object in this time then it wont imprint. Usually within its first 2 days
• what is imprinting?

  an innate readiness to develop a strong bond with the mother, takes place during a specific time in development
• what were the long lasting effects of Lorenz’s study?

  the process is irreversible and long lasting, one of the geese used to sleep on his bed every night

  early imprinting had effect on mate preferences, choose same kind of object on which they imprinted
• what is sexual imprinting?

  where animals acquire a template of the desirable characteristics required in a mate
• Strengths

  Support for imprinting - research exposed chicks to simple shaped moving combinations, chicks followed these moving shapes in preference for other shapes

  research found chickens were exposed to yellow rubber gloves and imprinted, male chickens tried to sexually imprint on gloves

  applications to human behaviour - baby duck syndrome , computer users become attached to first operating system
• limitations of Lorenz

  not generalisable