DAT Bootcamp 2026 Animal Behavior Bash – Unleash Your Wild Side and Ace It!

Imprinting is the rapid, early-life learning that leads a newborn animal to form a social attachment to the first moving object it encounters, often its caregiver, and to follow that object. In greylag geese this bonding happens within a brief critical period after hatching, so the chick becomes attached to and follows that first moving object. This isn’t about reinforcement shaping behavior (operant conditioning) or about forming an association between two stimuli (classical conditioning), and it isn’t simply a diminishing response to a repeated stimulus (habituation). The key idea is the incredibly fast, lasting social bond formed with the first moving object—typical imprinting in these birds.