caregiver infant attachment

• reciprocity


  refers to interaction between two people where they respond to each other's signals, one after the other (turn taking) - babies and mothers spend lots of time in intense and pleasurable interaction - interaction is reciprocal when each person responds to the other and elicits a response from them (back and forth) - traditional views = baby in passive role receiving care from adult, seems baby takes active role and mother and child take turns initiating interactions
• interactional synchrony


  two people said to be synchronised when they carry out same action simultaneously - interactional synchrony is when infants move their bodies in tune with the rhythm of carers spoken language - serves to reinforce attachment bond - takes place when mother and infant interact in such a way that their actions and emotions mirror each other e.g. baby moves head in time with mother - move with each other like one person
• INTERACTIONS EVALUATION - Melzoff and Moore


  found between infants aged 2-3 weeks tended to mimic adults' specific facial expressions and hand movements - is innate ability to aid formation of attachments
• INTERACTIONS EVALUATION - Isabella


  observed 30 mothers and infants together and assessed the degree of synchrony - also assessed the quality of mother infant attachment - found high level of synchrony associated with better quality mother infant attachment showing interactional synchrony is important in forming attachments
• INTERACTIONS EVALUATION - behaviour doesn't appear to be universal


  this behaviour isn't consistently found with all caregivers across cultures - interactional synchrony not found in all cultures weakens support for idea that it's necessary for attachment formation - Le Vine reported Kenyan mothers have little interaction with infants but infants have high proportion of secure attachments - suggests some interactions between caregivers and infants may just be a culture norm
• INTERACTION EVALUATION - many studies have shown same patterns of interaction 


  what is being observed is merely hand movements or changes in expression, extremely difficult to be certain what is taking place from infants perspective - infants imitation of adult signals is difficult to know whether it is conscious and deliberate or accidental - we can't really know for certain that behaviours seen in mother infant interactions have a special meaning
• INTERACTIONS EVALUATION - prone to observer bias


  type of interaction can only be studied through observing infant and caregiver in non participant observation some researchers may record more interactions than others - what one researcher views as interactional synchrony another may not - may be unreliable from one researcher to the next and lack validity