Imprinting

Imprinting is a type of learning, usually characteristic of fowls, that occurs only during a critical period of development soon after birth.




Mother duck with babies following her.





Mother duck with babies following her.
(© Sheila Fitzgerald/Shutterstock.com)

See also Adaptation ; Attachment ; Ethology ; Lorenz, Konrad.

Resources

BOOKS

Bowlby, John. A Secure Base: Clinical Applications of Attachment Theory. Hoboken, NJ: Taylor and Francis, 2012.

Collin, Catherine. The Psychology Book. London: DK, 2012.

Dugatkin, Lee Alan. Principles of Animal Behavior, 2nd ed. New York: Norton, 2009.

Goldberg, Susan, et al. Attachment Theory: Social, Developmental, and Clinical Perspectives. Hoboken, NJ: Taylor and Francis, 2013.

Gross, Richard. Key Studies in Psychology. London: Hodder Education, 2012.

Holmes, Paul, and Steve Farnfield. The Routledge Handbook of Attachment Theory. London: Routledge, 2014.

Keith, Kenneth D. Cross-Cultural Psychology: Contemporary Themes and Perspectives. Chichester, UK: WileyBlackwell, 2011.

Miller, Patricia H. Theories of Developmental Psychology. New York: Worth, 2011.

Music, Graham. Nurturing Natures: Attachment and Children's Emotional, Sociocultural, and Brain Development. Hove, UK: Psychology Press, 2011.

Otto, Hiltrud, and Heidi Keller. Different Faces of Attachment: Cultural Variations on a Universal Human Need. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

WEBSITES

Mayo Clinic. “Reactive Attachment Disorder.” http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/reactive-attachment-disorder/DS00988 (accessed September 9, 2015).

National Geographic Society. “Animal Attraction.” http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/health-andhuman-body/human-body/animal-attraction.html (accessed September 9, 2015).

World Health Organization. “Infant, Newborn.” http://www.who.int/topics/infant_newborn/en (accessed September 9, 2015).