4. The Modern View of Imprinting. Numerous
post-Lorenz laboratory studies of imprinting have
shown that its characteristics are not as clear-cut as
was at first thought. Nevertheless, the growth of
specific attachments in very young animals (attach-
ments which are acquired through exposure to sensory
stimulation rather than resulting from reward training)
is a common occurrence, and a very influential one,
in the development of behavior. Furthermore, there
is some evidence that imprinting is an important aspect
of early learning not only in birds but also in precocial
mammals (that is, those born in a relatively mature
state, such as guinea-pigs, sheep, horses, etc.). It may
well be—but this is still somewhat controversial—that
imprinting also plays an important part in the social-
ization of altricial species (that is, those that are rather
immature when born, e.g., dogs or monkeys). If so, then
it is not impossible that the human infant's tie to its
mother, and later the child's social behavior, depend
in some measure on the development of attachments
attained in an imprinting-like manner rather than con-
ditioned by association with physiological rewards.
In his 1935 paper in German, “The Companion in
the Bird's World,” Lorenz drew attention to certain
analogies in human behavior to the occurrence of
imprinting to, or with, inappropriate objects; he had
in mind human ways of acting which, as he put it,
“appear in the form of pathological fixations on the
object of an instinct.” This view fits in with, if it does
not actually refer to, Freud's conception of the
aetiology of many neurotic symptoms; and it ties up
with Freud's account of psychosexual phases of child
development, whereby in certain circumstances, emo-
tional development is said to be arrested and fixated
at one or another of the early psychosexual stages. Such
developmental fixations could possibly include inap-
propriate object-attachments; and these could perhaps
account for some of the well-known sexual deviations.
Learning early in life has always been of great inter-
est to all concerned with child-rearing methods, with
training, with indoctrination, and education in every
sense. More recently, early learning has become the
object of systematic research by students of animal
behavior and by child-development psychologists. The
idea of imprinting, as a special type of early learning,
was inherent—in an embryonic form—in the philoso-
phy of mind represented by the empiricist school of
thought. Later, as a result of observations of the be-
havior of young animals, the idea has reappeared in
a new guise. The study of animals has given fresh vigor
to the concept of imprinting; so much so, that this idea
is making a considerable impact upon modern human
psychology. Thus, the interest in sensory impressions
on the mind has largely given way to one in specific
imprinted attachments and in fixated modes of behav-
ior. The idea of imprinting needs now to be further
developed and refined to take full account of the new
experimental findings which are being continually re-
ported. Even so, the reborn idea of imprinting has been
useful in providing a mental picture of certain learning
situations and, above all, in giving a new direction and
purpose to current research efforts in the field and
laboratory.
