Animal Studies of attachement Flashcards
What did Lorenz observe?
Imprinting
Outline the Procedure in Lorenz (1952) experiment.
- Randomly divided a clutch of goose eggs
- Half the eggs were hatched with the mother goose in their natural environment.
- The other half hatched in an incubator where the first moving thing they saw was Lorenz.
Outline the findings in Lorenz (1952) Experiment.
- The incubator group followed Lorenz everywhere
-whereas the control group, hatched in the presence of their mother, followed her.
-When the two groups were mixed up the control group continued to follow the mother and the experimental group followed Lorenz.
What did Lorenz find about imprinting?
Lorenz identified a critical period in which imprinting needs to take place.
Depending on the species this can be as brief as a few hours after hatching (or birth).
If imprinting does not occur within that time Lorenz found that chicks did not attach themselves to a mother figure.
What did Lorenz find about sexual imprinting?
Whichever figure the animals/birds imprinted with first, they would often later display courtship behaviour towards that figure.
The ideal sexual partner.
