Caregiver-infant interaction

• What attachment?

  A close emotional bond between two people, in which they both view the other as essential for own emotional security
• what are two types of caregiver-infant interactions?

  Reciprocity, interactional synchrony
• what’s reciprocity?

  when a parent and child respond to each others signals (each elicits a response from the other)
• what’s interactions synchrony?

  temporary coordination or infant and caregiver responses, where actions and emotions mirrro eachother
• example of research for interactional synchrony?

  meltzoff and moore- controlled observation of new-borns, selected three facial expressions and a hand gesture and observed infants responses, observers asked to note instances of infant tongue protrusions and head movements
• what are the strengths of research into infant-caregiver interactions?

  well controlled- often recorded from multiple angles, fine details can be analysed and watched multiple times, increased validity

  real world applications- developed parent-child interaction therapy, research shown can improve interaction synchrony leading to better attachment
• what are the weaknesses of research into infant-caregiver interactions?

  difficult to observe infant behaviours- difficult to distinguish general movement and direct interaction, hard to establish cause and effectlimited usefulness- simply describes behaviours, does not explain the purpose of them

  socially sensitive- may suggest specific child-rearing practices are bad as they reduce opportunities for interactional synchrony, implications for social groups
• example of reseach for reciprocity?

  feldman- from 3 months reciprocity increases in frequency as the infant/ caregiver pay increasing attention to eachothrs verbal and facial communications. suggesting that if a caregiver pays sensitive attention towards the infants behaviour, it will lay the strong foundations for attachment later