Caregiver-Infant Interactions

• What is an attachment? 


  A close two-way emotional bond between two individuals; see eachother as essential for emotional security
• Signs of an attachment 


  Proximity (want to be close to attachment figure)

  Stranger anxiety

  Separation anxiety
• Interactional synchrony 


  Adults and babies respond to eachother in time to sustain communication
• Reciprocity 


  Interaction flows both ways (in turn) as two way process to respond to each other's signals

  Baby cries mum gives milk - meet echothers needs
• Imitation 


  Infant mimics/copies adults behaviour
• Metzoff and Moore

  • infants between 12-23 weeks shown manual and facial gestures
  • shown gesture and given dummy to prevent direct response
  • dummy removed and response recorded
• Findings of Metzoff and Moore


  Infants as young as 12 mo could reciprocate gestures, shows innate ability to imitate
• Strengths 


  Research support

  Clear and controlled observations (detailed analysis/high validity)

  Babies unaware they are being observed/do not change behaviour
• Weaknesses 


  Difficult to test infant behaviour (irrational)

  Babies cannot communicate so interactions are based on inference

  Practical issues - baby eating/sleeping - lacks reliability