Animal Studies Lorenz

Question 1

What is imprinting?

Answer 1

Certain animals, many birds species, attach to their mother strongly; infant animal will follow mother. Lorenz called this imprinting

Question 2

What was Lorenz (1935) procedure

Answer 2

• greylag goose eggs randomly divided: half hatched by Lorenz in an incubator, other half naturally hatched by mother
• later studies - varied time between hatching and when goslings first observed moving object

Question 3

Findings

Answer 3

• hatched by Lorenz - followed him
• hatched by mother - followed mother
• put all in box and lifted box - goslings who imprinted on Lorenz found him and followed him
• Critical period of around 32 hours - if goslings didn’t imprint on a large moving object in this time then it loses ability to imprint

Question 4

Conclusion

Answer 4

Imprinting is a strong evolutionary/biological feature of attachment in certain birds

Question 5

AO3 Strength - point

Answer 5

Supportive research as studies found that animals attach to first object they see after birth

Question 6

AO3 Strength - evidence

Answer 6

Guiton (1966) - leghorn chicks imprinted on gloves used to feed them in their first few weeks and makes tried to mate with the gloves

Question 7

AO3 Limitation - point

Answer 7

Lorenz’s imprinting study has an issue with animal extrapolation

Question 8

AO3 Limitation - evidence

Answer 8

Findings based off birds - problem generalizing from birds to human - different brains