Lorenz, 1935

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• Lorenz, 1935

• Aim: unknown

• Lorenz took a large clutch of goose eggs and kept them until they were about to hatch.

• Found that geese follow the first moving object they see, during a 12-17 hour critical period after hatching. 

• He took half of the eggs and placed them under a goose mother, while the other half he kept beside himself for several hours.

• When the geese hatched, Lorenz imitated a mother duck's quacking sounds, upon which the young birds regarded him as their mother and followed him accordingly.

• The other group of chicks followed the goose mother.

• If no attachment has developed within 32 hours then its unlikely any attachment will occur ever.

• This process is known as imprinting, and suggests that attachment is innate and programmed genetically.

• Imprinting has consequences for short term survival and in the longer term forming internal templates for later relationships.

• Imprinting occurs without any feeding taking place.

• Evaluation

• One issue of Lorenz' study is that it lacks generalisability to humans; mammalian attachment systems are different from that in birds. For example, mammalian mothers show more emotional attachment to young than the birds do. 

• It supports the view that having a biological basis for an attachment is adaptive as it promotes survival.