Caregiver-infant interactions

• What is an attachment?

  A close two-way emotional bond between two individuals in which each individual sees the other as essential for their own emotional security.
• How long do attachments take to develop?

  Takes a few months to develop.
• How can we recognise an attachment?

  • proximity
  • separation distress
  • secure-base behaviour
• What is proximity? (Attachment)

  People try to stay physically close to those to whom they are attached.
• What is separation distress?

  People are distressed when an attachment figure leaves their presence.
• What is secure-base behaviour?

  Even when we are independent of our attachment figures, we tend to make regular contact with them.
• How do infants display secure-base behaviour?

  They regularly return to their attachment figure while playing.
• What are caregiver-infant interactions?

  Babies have meaningful social interactions with their carers from an early age.
• Benefits of caregiver-infant interactions

  It is believed these interactions have important functions for the child's social development, in particular for the development of caregiver-infant attachments.
• What is reciprocity?

  A description of how two people interact. mother-infant is reciprocal in that both infant and mother respond to each other's signals and each elicits a response from the other.
• Interactional synchrony

  Mother and infant reflect both the actions and emotions of the other and do this in a co-ordinated (synchronised) way.
• Evidence for interactional synchrony

  Meltzoff and Moore observed the beginnings of interactional synchrony as young as two weeks old.
• limitation of caregiver-infant interactions

  • it is hard to know what is happening when observing infants
  • many studies involving observation of interactions have shown the same pattersn of interaction
  • what is being observed is merely hand movements or changes in expression
  • it is difficult to be certain what is taking place from the infant's perspective eg is it deliberate?
  • we cannot know for certain that behaviours have a special meaning
• strength of caregiver-infant interactions

  • controlled observations capture fine details
  • observations of mother-ifant interactions are generally well controlled
  • both mother and baby are filmed from multiple angles
  • babies don't know/care that they are being observed, does not change in response to controlled observation
  • good validity
• limitation of caregiver-infant interactions

  • observations don't tell us the purpose of synchrony and reciprocity
  • synchrony simply describes behaviours that occur at the same time
  • while they can be reliably observed, not particuarly useful as it does not tell us their purpose
  • however, some evidence that they are helpful in development of attachment
• research into interactional synchrony

  • an adult displayed one of three facial expressions or one of three distinctive gestures
  • child's response was filmed and identified by independent observers
  • association found between the expression/gesture the adult had displayed and the actions of the babies