Who is best known for imprinting, the instinctual behavior in which the infant follows the first moving object it encounters?

• A. Sigmund Freud
• B. Jane Loevinger
• C. Robert Havighurst
• D. Konrad Lorenz

Answer: (D)

Imprinting is a rapid early learning process in which the young form a fast attachment to the first moving object they encounter, often their parent, during a narrow critical period after birth. Konrad Lorenz first demonstrated this with greylag goose goslings, which, after hatching, followed him around as if he were their mother because the behavior is triggered by a specific early window and a moving object they encounter. This show of instinct combined with early experience highlights how some social attachments are built in at a biological level but require exposure during a brief developmental phase. Freud is associated with psychoanalytic theory, Loevinger with ego development, and Havighurst with developmental tasks—none of them are linked to imprinting in the way Lorenz is.