AO1 - Reciprocity & Interactional Synchrony

• Recognising an attachment:

  • Proximity: infants try to stay physically close to those they are attached to
  • Separation distress: infants are distressed when an attachment figure leaves their presence
  • Secure base behaviour: infants always 'touch base' with our attachment figure and regularly return to their attachment figure whilst playing
• Interactional Synchrony - Caregiver and infant respond in time to keep communication going (1) e.g. infant smiles, caregiver smiles back at the same time. (1) This type of communication ensures infant and caregivers emotions and actions mirror each others
• Meltzoff and Moore:

  • controlled observation of 40 two week old infants to measure caregiver-infant interactions
  • an adult displayed one of three facial expressions or distinctive gestures, such as mouth opening or tongue protrusion
  • the child's response was filmed and identified by an independent observer (1)
  • a link was found between the facial expression/gesture of the adult and the response of the infant (1)
• Reciprocity - Two way mutual process where infant and caregiver take turns to respond to each other's behaviours/signals to sustain interaction. (1) The behaviour of each party elicits a response from the other, e.g. child puts arms out to be held, caregiver picks up (1)
• Infants have 'alert phases' and signal when they are ready for interaction - mothers pick up and act on these signals 2/3rds of the time (1)
• Brazelton said both mother and infant initiate the interaction and take it in turns to do so - he called this the 'dance'. He said it's like when a couple dance together, they respond to each other's moves. (1)