caregiver-infant interaction

• what is attatchment

  a close two way emotional bond between two individuals in which each individual sees the other as essential for their own emotional security
• what is reciprocity?


  a two way process where each person responds to the others signals to sustain interaction

  -it influences the child's physical, cognitive and psychological development of trust/distrust

  -it shapes how the child will learn and form relationships
• negative reciprocal processes are disadvantageous to a childs development
• what is interactional synchrony?


  a pattern of social communication where behaviours of individuals become synchronised (actions and emotions mirror eachother)
• AO3 - reciprocity supporting evidence

  still face study - mother has a still face and doesnt respond to the babys actions

  =baby becomes agitated because they cant evoke a response
• AO3 - interactional synchrony supporting evidence

  facial expressions study where an association was found between the expression or gestures the adult displayed and the actions of the baby

  -childs response was filmed and observed to give reliability + the ability for other researchers to observe
• AO3 - difficult to observe and no reasons

  -dont know if the imitation is conscious + deliberate or not, cant be sure it has a special meaning

  however, they were reliably observed and repeated behaviours occur at the same time so they must learn to deliberately imitate

  :( doesnt tell us their purpose
• AO3 - controlled observations

  -well controlled:

  • both filmed from multiple angles so no details are missed and can be later analysed
  • babies dont know they're being recorded so their behaviour wont be affected