evaluation of caregiver interactions

• • meltzoff and moore study, indicated that babies will show interactional synchrony from a few weeks old, but we do not know the true intention of behaviour exhibited by infants
  • Gratier (2003) showed similar patterns of caregiver interactions
  • But we can't be sure of what is taking place in the infants brain and if imitation is conscious or deliberate
  • weakness as we can't be certain that these infant-caregiver interactions have any significant meaning

  in short, it removes validity from meltzoff and moore, as babies actions are hard to determine intention
• • piaget found, true imitation only develops towards the end of the first year, anything before that was only response training
  • infants repeat rewarded behaviour, as they are encouraged to exhibit the same behaviour again
  • pseudo-imitation, as infant has not consciously translated what they see into a matching movement
  • piaget opposes interaction theory, as imitation is the cause (undermines)
• trevarthen (1985)

  • supports interaction theory
  • infants tried to gain mothers attention when she wasn't responding or turned away
• • this explanation of infant-caregiver interactions is not found in all cultures
  • le vine et al (1994) found that kenyan mothers have little physical interactions / contact with infants but infants have a high proportion of secure attachments
  • research may be ethnocentric and ignores how attachments are formed within other cultures
  • reduces validity of research as all cultures should be taken into account in order to generalise as much as possible