Talk:Imprinting (psychology)

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 28 August 2019 and 6 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): JazzyBen1234. Peer reviewers: Deja93.

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General definition
The present lead-in reads, "Imprinting is the term used in psychology and ethology to describe any kind of phase-sensitive learning (learning as in "a term which r class of objects". I've added that the latter to the intro, but still, I'm not sure the former is clear enough on what needs to be said. Lucidish 23:27, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
 * You take it wrongly. "Imprinting" started as a term applied to a narrowly perceptual kind of learning, but is now applied more widely.  seglea 06:21, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

A.I.
Is it worth mentioning A.I., since imprinting is a major part of that film? I believe it raised awareness of the phenonmenon. &mdash;Joseph/N328KF (Talk) 16:28, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
 * i haven't seen the movie in a long time, but that sounds good. maybe in a trivia or popular culture section? --dan 20:39, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia doesn't do trivia sections. Richard001 09:18, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
 * because wikipedia is run by elitists. if you don't want a trivia section, put it in some other section. --dan 03:02, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Reversal of Westermarck effect
Can the westermarck effect be reverted/broken? Is it a type of association? by smell? THANKS -- 219.77.88.244 03:41, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Merge with Imprinting of young animals
That page is a new stub describing the first subsection of this article. It has no new information, so only a redirect is needed. Garrepi 05:19, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree. Jam01 05:50, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * OK, OK, I created Imprinting of young animals, delete it. I have moved the 2 links that pointed to it. I have removed the merge notices and asked for Imprinting of young animals to be speedy deleted. Sorry. Anthony Appleyard 06:15, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Shim-pua marriage
I have not read where the actual research has been conducted or the books listed as reference regarding this practice, but from my understanding, this is actually a common practice in Chinese rural areas, instead of exclusively only in Taiwan. The term "Shim-pua", while used in Taiwan, is a word from Min-Nan dialect, and is readily used parts of Southern China other than Taiwan.

Untill someone else can provide me with direct quote from the books that conducted the actual research, I'm going to change this part of the article to reflect the fact of this practice.

--Finestela 15:04, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Leary's work with imprinting
I know Timothy Leary's psychology work focused heavily on imprinting, and was later elaborated on by Robert Anton Wilson. Does any know more who could write a better section on this (a psychology student, hopefully)?--Primal Chaos (talk) 20:05, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Steven Pinker
'In his book How the Mind Works, the psychologist Steven Pinker noted the following: "The idea that boys want to sleep with their mothers strikes most men as the silliest thing they have ever heard. Obviously, it did not seem so to Freud, who wrote that as a boy he once had an erotic reaction to watching his mother dressing. But Freud had a wet-nurse, and may not have experienced the early intimacy that would have tipped off his perceptual system that Mrs. Freud was his mother. The Westermarck theory has out-Freuded Freud" (p. 460).'

This passage is a deliberately offensive piece of speculation and doesn't belong in a neutral article.Skoojal (talk) 19:59, 31 January 2008 (UTC)


 * what could possibly be offensive about that passage? if you disagree with it, fine, cite something else that disputes it or give a reason it doesn't belong. of course it's speculation, but so is the entire concept of imprinting. this is pinker's thought on freud, one scholar responding to the views of another. how is that not neutral? especially when given as a quote from pinker, and not as actual fact. i'm putting it back in. --dan (talk) 07:27, 1 March 2008 (UTC)


 * If you want to source a claim about Freud's life, use a biography of Freud. The fact that that Steven Pinker is a scholar is irrelevant; he is a scholar who is not a biographer of Freud. Skoojal (talk) 21:22, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Just to update this, I'm going to continue removing that claim unless someone gives a sensible reason for inserting it. The fact that Pinker is a scientist is not a good enough reason for his claim to be there; real science isn't based on the opinions of 'most men.' Skoojal (talk) 06:49, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

if you're just planning to remove it forever, i won't bother putting it back in again. i don't want to get into a revert war over this. but, why does this bother you so badly? if you think it's incorrect or irrelevent (though i'll note you are yet to claim either of those), fine, but i still honestly don't understand what could possibly be offensive about it, let alone deliberately so. pinker is not a biographer of freud, and freud was not a biographer of anyone else either. if it's reasonable to include freud's views on other people's supposed sexual predilictions as relates to imprinting, i don't see why the same can't be said of pinker. his not being a biographer is a nonissue; he could very easily have himself read a freud biography. are you disputing the facts he offers? do you have reason to do so? and if our main concern was protecting the purity of 'real science' i'd say we would have to take freud out of the article entirely. actually, we would have to take most of the article out of the article. psychology is only a chemistry set to behaviorists. --dan (talk) 13:56, 11 March 2008 (UTC)


 * fyi, if i get no response after a reasonable time, i will assume you've wandered off and will add it again. i'm happy to discuss this but you don't get to singlehandedly veto the quote because you don't like it. --dan (talk) 18:04, 14 March 2008 (UTC)


 * That Pinker is not a biographer of Freud means that what he says about Freud is simply personal opinion or speculation. That 'may not' part of the quote shows that Pinker really doesn't know anything about what kind of personal intimacy with his mother Freud might have had. So there is no reason for the quote to be there. Skoojal (talk) 05:09, 15 April 2008 (UTC)


 * As for your argument that, 'if our main concern was protecting the purity of 'real science' i'd say we would have to take freud out of the article entirely', this would only apply if the article presented Freud's views as fact. It doesn't. It simply says what Freud thought. Skoojal (talk) 05:12, 15 April 2008 (UTC)


 * you seem very intent on protecting freud's reputation from the slight of disputation. but being someone's biographer is not required to know something about them. as i said, maybe pinker read a biography on freud. do you dispute what pinker says? can you cite something that supports your pov? or at the least, can you be consistent in your arguments -- if pinker has to come out because what he said is speculation and not fact, you can't then defend freud's inclusion by saying it's only his thoughts and not fact. pick an argument and stay with it. also, i think you've misinterpreted the 'may not' of pinker's quote. that isn't him saying he doesn't know what relationship freud had with his mother, it's saying maybe that relationship wasn't enough for imprinting, since nobody knows precisely what that is. he was being precise, not equivocating. and finally, i took out that quote you put in as it only referenced the westermark effect in passing while it was talking about bestiality, a different subject entirely. and i added back in the lines you deleted with no mention or explanation. --dan (talk) 01:56, 19 April 2008 (UTC)


 * 'Maybe' is not a very strong reason for including something in an article. It's really not good enough that Pinker might have read a biography of Freud, one wants to be sure that he did, and there is no indication of this from that quote. The problem wouldn't exist if a proper biography were used as a source instead of Pinker. Your comments about how it doesn't matter that Pinker is only speculating show that you've misunderstood my point, I'm afraid. The quote from Pinker presented his views as fact, but the mention of Freud's views in the article doesn't. So there's no comparison. The quote from Badcock mentioned bestiality only to make a point about the Westermarck effect, so your argument for removing it is invalid. Skoojal (talk) 05:01, 19 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I've just checked the bibliography of Pinker's book. It doesn't include any biographies of Freud, and there is no sign Pinker has used one. Skoojal (talk) 05:18, 19 April 2008 (UTC)


 * how did pinker's quote present it as anything but his personal interpretation? that isn't fact; it's him speculating in his book, quite blatantly. i don't think i misunderstood anything. as for badcock, maybe it would be clear with some context, but the vast majority of the quote is discussing beastiality, then incest is only mentioned passingly at the end, and the westermarck effect (as opposed to westermarck's views generally) not at all. no point about the westermarck effect is in the quote given, therefore it shouldn't be in the article. let's compromise: i still like the pinker quote but it is hardly vital to the article. let's leave both quotes out. is that all right?
 * meanwhile, ONCE AGAIN i have replaced the lines which you deleted with not even a mention. if you don't like them, say why. they have 2 citations supporting them. do you disagree with those? do you have citations that dispute it? --dan (talk) 01:56, 21 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I am quite happy to compromise on the quotes, but the lines that you re-inserted look like an expression of someone's opinion to me, and probably violate the article's neutrality. I have therefore modified them. Skoojal (talk) 08:10, 21 April 2008 (UTC)


 * that sounds to me more like weasel words than neutrality, but i won't fight it. --dan (talk) 03:41, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Westermarck effect
Please note what Incest taboo has to say on the Westermarck effect. It provides a source (Hartung 1985) that explicitly contradicts Shepher 1983. I do not have either source available so that I do not intend to change the article but I would like to alert the readers and editors of this article to this point. Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:02, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Westermarck effect and cousin couples?
"This attraction may also be seen with cousin couples." Do we have anything to back this up? If so what about all the cousin couples in the world? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lord Don-Jam (talk • contribs) 18:34, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I understood the last sentence to mean that because cousins usually do not grow up in the same household they are more likely to be sexually attracted to each other as adults despite being close genetic relatives. However, this sentence could do with expansion or citation, or else could be removed altogether from the article. 210.48.101.90 (talk) 05:56, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Overly Positive
This article fails to take account of alternative views that effectively render imprinting merely a subordinate form of training. See http://www.animatedsoftware.com/family/howardsh/imprint.htm Absent a more thorough discussion, this article is misleading and useless. --djenner (talk) 00:32, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Needed: a section on traumatic imprinting
Imprinting is more commonly found in certain animals. Humans bond in a slower more complex process. But Trauma often causes an indelible imprinting of the memory of the trauma. --205.167.120.201 (talk) 00:51, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Hi 205.167.120.201! If you have good, secondary sources - and please also check WP:MEDRS - than please be bold and write a section about it! With friendly regards,  Lova Falk     talk   19:18, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Why the name "baby duck syndrome"?
Is it that computer users are like baby ducks, who make a motherly bond with whatever duck/animal raises them? --Gronky (talk) 02:20, 19 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, I believe they are comparing the first system used to the animal that is imprinted on as "mother". Jergas (talk) 09:56, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

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