Lorenz's Research

Lorenz's Research

1. Lorenz first observed the phenomenon of imprinting when he was a child and a neighbour gave him a newly hatched duckling that then followed him around.

   • Lorenz was interested in imprinting in birds. Some of his findings have influenced our understanding of human development, but there is a problem generalising from findings on birds to humans. Mammalian attachmenht is quite different, with mothers showing more emotional attachment to young than birds.
   • Later research has questioned some of Lorenz's conclusions. Guiton et al. found that chickens imprinted on yellow washing up gloves would try to mate with them as adults, but with that experience learn to prefer mating with other chickens. This opposes Lorenz's conclusion that imprinting has a permanent effect on mating behaviour. This suggests the impact of imprinting on mating behaviour is not as permanent as Lorenz believed.

2. PROCEDURE

   • He set up an experiment in which he 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 object they saw was Lorenz.

3. FINDINGS

   • The incubator group followed Lorenz everywhere whereas the control group followed the mother goose.
   • When the two groups were mixed up the control group continued to follow the mother and the experimental group still followed Lorenz.
   • This is called imprinting - whereby bird species mobile from birth attach to and follow the first moving object they see.
     • Lorenz identified a critical period in which imprinting needs to take place. If it does not occur within that time Lorenz found that chicks did not attach themselves to a mother figure.

4. Lorenz also investigated sexual imprinting - the relationship between imprinting and adult male preferences.

   • He observed that birds that imprinted on a human would often later display courtship behaviour towards humans, in attempt to attract them.
   • In a case study Lorenz (1952) describe a peacock that had been reared in the reptile house of a zoo where the first moving objects the peacock saw after hatching were giant tortoises.
     • As an adult this bird would only direct courtship behaviour towards giant tortoises.
       • Lorenz concluded that this meant he had undergone sexual imprinting.