Caregiver Infant Interaction

• Attachment


  Develops by a reciprocal process which is a two-way mutual process involving turn-taking, where an emotional connection develops between an infant and their primary caregiver
• Reciprocal process of attachment


  • Each party responds to the other's signals to sustain interaction (turn-taking)
  • The behaviour of each party elicits a response from the other
• Attachment connection


  • Influences the child's physical, neurological, cognitive and psychological development
  • Becomes the basis for development of basic trust or mistrust
  • Shapes how the child will relate to the world, learn, and form relationships throughout life
• Reciprocity in caregiver-infant interactions


  • Caregiver reacts and responds to the signals given out by the baby, providing comfort warmth and empathy
  • Smiling back at the baby when he/she smiles
  • Picking them up and giving a cuddle when they cry
• Negative reciprocal processes still will contribute to an attachment, but one which will not be advantageous to the child's development
• Tronick (1979) experiment


  • Mums who had been babbling to their children, were asked to stop moving and maintain an unsmiling expression
  • The baby would try to tempt them into interacting with them again by smiling to try to get the mum to react
  • When this did not happen, the baby would become puzzled and distressed
• Babies come to expect and anticipate appropriate responses to their smiles
• Interactional synchrony


  • A theory of social communication where the behaviour of one or more individuals become synchronized
  • Occurs when interactions between carers and infants result in mutual behaviour- both parties are able to produce responses from each other helping to cement their attachment
• Meltzoff and Moore (1997)


  Conducted a series of controlled observations using 12-21 day-old babies
• Stimuli exposed to babies


  • 3 facial gestures (e.g., sticking tongue out)
  • 1 manual gesture (waving fingers)
• Procedure

  1. Dummy placed in baby's mouth to prevent facial response

  2. Display from adult model

  3. Dummy removed

  4. Baby's expressions observed and actions video recorded

  5. Independent observer noted instances of tongue protrusion and head movements
• Each observer scored the recordings twice to allow for inter-rater reliability and intra-observer reliability to be assessed
• Babies aged 12-21 days could imitate both facial expressions and manual gestures
• Later research by Meltzoff and Moore (1983) found the same findings in three-day-old infants
• Meltzoff and Moore concluded that

  The ability to imitate serves as an important building block for later social and cognitive development, and that interactional synchrony is innate
• Difficulties in studying babies

  • Babies can't consent
  • Babies can't withdraw
  • Short testing intervals
  • Caregivers consent
• Infants can also use these experiences to predict how people might respond to them in future situations
• Controlled observations


  • Often capture fine details
  • Generally well-controlled procedures
• Babies are unaware that they are being observed so their behaviour does not change in response to controlled observations
• Internal validity


  The research is measuring what it is intending to measure
• It is hard to know what is happening when observing infants
• Infant's imitation of the adult

  It is unclear whether it is conscious and deliberate or a coincidence
• What is being observed is merely hand movements or changes in expressions
• It is extremely difficult to be certain, based on these observations, what is taking place from the infant's perspective
• We cannot really know for certain that behaviours seen in mother-infant interactions have special meaning