Caregiver-infant interactions

• What is attachment? 


  A close two way emotional bond between two individuals which sees eachother as essential for their own emotional security
• we can recognise an attachment when people display the following behaviours:

  • proximity (staying close to the attachment figure)
  • separation distress (being upset when an attachment figure leaves)
  • secure-base behaviour (babies leaving the attachment figure but regularly returning to them when playing)
• what are the two kinds of interaction?

  • reciprocity (taking turns to respond)
  • interactional synchrony (simultaneous imitation)
• what is reciprocity?

  • it is achieved when baby and caregiver respond to eachother and elicit responses from each other
  • alert phases are times for interaction
  • mothers successfully respond around 2/3 of the time (Feldman and Eidelman 2007)
  • from around 3 months this interaction becomes more intense and reciprocal
  • traditional views of childhood have seen the baby in a passive role, receiving care from an adult
  • however, it seems that babies are active participants
  • both caregiver and baby can initiate interactions and take turns to do so
• Interactional synchrony


  The temporal coordination of micro level social behaviour
• Interactional synchrony


  • People are said to be synchronised when they carry out the same actions simultaneously
• Meltzoff and Moore (1977) observed the beginnings of interactional synchrony in babies as young as 2 weeks old
• Meltzoff and Moore (1977) study


  1. Adults displayed one of 3 facial expressions or one of 3 gestures

  2. They filmed the babies' response
• Isabella (1989) observed 30 mothers and babies together and assessed the degree of synchrony
• Findings of Isabella (1989)High levels of synchrony


  Associated with better quality mother-baby attachment
• Meltzoff and Moore (1977) findings 


  They found that babies' expressions and gestures were more likely to mirror those of the adults than chance would predict
• One strength of the research on this topic is the use of filmed observations


  Mother-baby interactions are usually filmed, often from multiple angles. Very fine details of behaviour can be recorded and analysed later. Also babies dont know they are being observed, so their behaviour doesn’t change in response to observation. This means studies have good reliability and validity
• one limitation for the research is the difficulty in observing babies


  its hard to observe babies behaviour because they arent very coordinated. we just observe small gestures and small changes in expression. its also hard to interpret the meaning of babies movements, e.g. deciding if a hand movement is a response to a caregiver or a random twitch. this means we cannot be certain that any particular interactions observed between baby and caregiver are meaningful
• another limitation is difficulty interfering developmental important


  Feldman (2012) points out that synchrony and reciprocity simply describe behaviours that occur at the same time. these are robust phenomena in the sense they can be reliably observed, but this may not be useful as its doesn’t tell us their purpose. this means that we cannot be certain from observations that reciprocity or synchrony are important in development
• another limitation is difficulty interfering developmental importance: counter point


  however, there is some evidence from other sources e.g. Isabella (1989) to suggest that good levels of reciprocity and synchrony are associated with good quality attachments. this means that, on balance, these early interactions are likely to have importance for development