A03

• What are the strengths of caregiver-infant interactions?

  1. No demand characteristics with babies
  2. Value of the research
• What are the limitations of caregiver-infant interactions?

  1. Socially sensitive research
  2. Overlooks individual differences
• Strength = no demand characteristics with babies

  • When observing mother-infant interactions demand characteristics will not occur with baby’s behaviour
  • Babies do not care/ understand that they are being observed and so their behaviour does not change in response to controlled observations
  • E.g. Meltzoff and Moore (1977) - researchers gained all the benefits of having a highly controlled procedure without the downfall of demand characteristics
  • The babies will have been acting in a way that they would have done in an everyday situation
• Strength = value of the research

  • The importance of this imitative behaviour is that it forms the basis for social development
  • Infants begin to acquire an understanding of what other people are thinking and feeling (‘Theory of mind’) - this is fundamental for conducting social relationships
  • This research explains how children begin to understand what others think and feel and thus are able to conduct relationships
• Limitation = socially sensitive research

  • Research into mother-infant interactions is socially sensitive because it suggests that children may be disadvantaged by particular child-rearing practices
  • In particular, mothers who return to work shortly after a child is born restrict the opportunities for achieving interactional synchrony, which has been found to be important in developing infant-caregiver attachment
  • This suggests that mothers should not return to work so soon and this has socially sensitive implications
• Limitation = overlooks individual differences

  • A criticism of Meltzoff and Moore’s research is that recent research has found that only securely attached infants engage in interactional synchrony
  • E.g. Isabella et al. (1989) found that the more securely attached the infant, the greater the level of interactional synchrony
  • This suggests that not all children engage in interactional synchrony and that Meltzoff and Moore’s original findings may have overlooked individual differences which could be a mediating factor