Animal Studies of Attachment

Question 1

Lorenz procedure:

Answer 1

Lorenz set up a classical experiment - he randomly divided a large clutch of goose eggs.

One half of the eggs were hatched with the mother goose in their natural environment

the other half of the eggs were hatched in an incubator where the first moving object they saw was Lorenz

Question 2

Lorenz findings:

Answer 2

Lorenz found that the incubator group followed Lorenz everywhere and the control group followed the mother everywhere.

when Lorenz mixed the groups, the control group continued to follow their mother and the experimental group followed Lorenz

Question 3

Imprinting

Answer 3

when a bird species that are mobile from birth attach to and follow the first moving object they see

Lorenz identified a critical period for when imprinting needs to take place - depending on the species, this can be as brief as a few hours.

if imprinting does not occur within this critical period - Lorenz found that chicks did not attach themselves to a mother figure

Question 4

sexual imprinting

Answer 4

Lorenz investigated relationship between imprinting and adult mate preferences.

he observed birds that imprinted on a human would often later display courtship behaviour towards humans.

in a case study, Lorenz describes a peacock that had been reared in the reptile house in a zoo - the first moving object the peacock saw after hatching was a giant tortoise

as an adult, the bird would only direct courtship behaviour to giant tortoises

Lorenz concluded that the peacock had undergone sexual imprinting