introduction

• attachment

  the formation of a strong, reciprocal emotional bond between an infant and a primary caregiver
• an attachment is where the individual sees the other as essential for their own emotional security
• characteristics of attachment

  • proximity
  • separation distress
  • secure base behaviour
• reciprocity

  caregiver and infant respond to each others signals and each elicits a response by the other
• reciprocity by 3 months

  • interaction is frequent in alert phases
  • pay close attention to each others verbal signals and facial expressions
• both baby and mother are actively making this attachment reciprocal by responding to each other and eliciting a response
• interactional synchrony

  • when two people interact, they tend to mirror what the other person is doing in terms of facial and body movements
  • temporal coordination of microbehaviour - when mother and infant interact in such a way that their actions mirror each other
• it is hard to study babies as we can't see their intentions from actions
• babies are born with the ability to suckle
• isabella et al (1989)

  • observed 30 mothers and their babies
  • high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother and baby attachment, meaning a higher emotional intensity of the relationship
  • suggest that interactional synchrony is important for development of attachment
• tronick (1978)

  p = mother faces baby and holds a 'still face', which she doesn't react to babies behaviours

  f = babies became distressed

  c = lack of caregiver interactions causes babies tpo become distressed, and overtime babies will learn to stop responding
• meltzoff and moore (1977)

  • systematic study to test for interactional synchrony
  • adult modelled 3 facial expressions or hand movements, moving in a sequence
  • dummy was placed in infants mouth during the initial display, to prevent any response
  • after the display, the dummy is removed and the child expression filmed
• meltzoff and moore findings (1977)

  • significant association = found that the babies expressions/ gestures were more likely mirroring the adult, than that of chance
  • suggest it is very likely that the babies were synchronizing expressions and gestures with adults
  • observers scored tapes and interobserver reliability was greater than 0.92, meaning the procedure is considered very reliable