caregiver-infant interactions

• an attachment is a strong emotional bond between two people, that is reciprocal
• what 4 characteristics does an attachment relationship have?

  • seeking proximity
  • distress on seperation
  • joy on reunion
  • orientation of your behaviour towards them
• for an infant to form an attachment with their caregiver there needs to be interaction and reciprocity. babies need to be able to communicate with their carer for an attachmment to form. this is why interaction is important for babies
• types of interaction:

  • bodily contact [e.g. hugs, kisses, carrying]
  • mimicking - babies imitate their caregivers facial expressions
  • caregiverese - adults use a modified voice which is high pitched, sing song voice, slow and repetitive to help babies understand
  • interactional synchrony - infants move their bodies in tune with the rhythm of the parents spoken language to create turn taking
  • reciprocity - interactions should result in mutual behaviours that both parties can produce responses from each other
• Dr Tronick - still face experiment


  1. mother played with and spoke to her baby, giving her attention and responding to her noises and actions [2 minutes]
  2. mother stopped responding and stared blankly at the baby [2 minutes]

  very quickly the daughter became distressed and tried to recieve her mothers attention again by using the normal behaviours that insighted a reaction from her. she cried and screamed. when the time was up she gave her baby attention again and they both returned to normal.
• what did the still face experiment show

  the importance of carer-infant interaction in the development of attachment between the mother and daughter.
• Klaus and Kennel 


  they compared mothers who had extended physical contact with their babies lasting several hours a day, with mothers who only had physical contact with their babies during feeding in the 3 days after birth. 1 month later, the mothers with the greater physical contact were found to cuddle their babies more and they made greater eye contact. the effects were still noticed a year later
• Melzoff and Moore


  they found that infants aged 2-3 weeks tended to mimick adults facial expressions and hand movements, supporting the idea that infant mimicry is an innate ability to aid the formation of attachments. this has also been seen in infants less than 3 days old
• Papousek 


  found that usinga rising tone to indicate to an infant that is was their turn for interaction is cross cultural. this suggests that caregiverese is an innate, biological device to facilitate the formation of attachments
• Heimann 


  they showed that infants who demonstrate a lot of imitation from birth onwards are found to have the strongest quality of relationship at 3 months. however, it isnt clear whether imitation is a cause or an effect of early synchrony
• evaluation

  it has practical applications as hospitals now place babies and their mothers in a shared room after birth
• caregiverese has been seen to be used by adults to all infants, not just those they have an attachment to. therefore, the tone may just help adults to communicate with infants rather than form attachments
• interactional synchrony is not found in all cultures. Kenyan mothers have little interaction or physical contact with their infants, but the infants still have high levels of secure attachment
• many studies involving the observation of interactions between mothers and infants show the same patterns of interaction. however, whats being observed is just facial expressions and hand movements. its difficult to be sure that the infant is conciously and deliberately doing this
• cannot be sure that the behaviours between mother and infant have a special meaning
• observations of mother - infant interactions are generally well controlled, they are filmed. this means that fine details of the behaviour can be recorded and analysed / studied later
• babies don't know or care that they're being observed so they do not exhibit demand characteristics. this is a strength because the research then has higher validity