caregiver attachments

• caregiver infant interactions

  • Attachment is an emotional tie or bond between two people, usually a primary caregiver and a child.
  • The relationship is reciprocal (shared), which means that it is a two-way relationship that endures over time
  • Interactions between caregivers and infants are the subject of psychological research, as they provide an insight into the type and nature of attachment
• reciprocity

  • Reciprocity is when an infant responds to the actions of another person in a form or turn-taking. With reciprocity, the actions of one person (i.e. the primary caregiver) elicits a response from the other (i.e. the infant)
• brezelton 1975

  • describe this interaction as a ‘dance’ because when a couple dance together they each respond to one another’s movements and rhythm
  • reciprocity as a caregiver– infant interaction is where the interaction between both individuals flows back and forth
• feldman 2007

  • reciprocity increases in frequency as the infant and caregiver pay increasing attention to each other’s verbal and facial communications
  • showing this sensitive responsiveness, whereby the caregiver pays attention sensitively towards the infant’s behaviour, will lay the strong foundations for attachment to develop later between the caregiver and infant.
• interactional synchrony

  • takes place when infants mirror the actions or emotions of another person, for example, their facial expressions
  • This mirroring can also be referred to as imitation or simply copying the adult’s behaviour
  • the child will move their body or carry out the same act as their caregiver simultaneously and they're synchronised
  • This interaction serves to sustain communication between the two individuals
• meltzoff and moore 1977

  • Aim: To examine interactional synchrony in infants
  • Method: Using a controlled observation, an adult model displayed one of three facial expressions, or a hand gesture.
  • the child had a dummy placed in his/her mouth to prevent a facial response.
  • Following the display from the adult model, the dummy was removed and the child’s expressions were filmed
• findings of meltzoff and moore 1977

  • Results: There was a clear association between the infants’ behaviour and that of the adult model.
  • Later research found the same findings in three-day-old infants
  • Conclusion: These findings suggest that interactional synchrony is innate and reduces the strength of any claim that imitative behaviour is learned.
• AO3 filmed observations

  • care giver infant interactions were filmed in a lab
  • other activity that distracted the baby can be controlled
  • using fils mean that observations can be recorded and analysed later, which also can establish inter rater reliability of observations
  • babies dont know their being observations, so behaviour doesn't change
  • data has good reliability and validity
• AO3 hard to interpret babys behaviour

  • babies dont move
  • observing small hand movements and changes in expression is difficult to determine from the babys perspective
  • a hand twitch is random or triggered by something the caregiver has done
  • we cant be certain that the behaviours seen in caregiver infant interactions have special meaning
• AO3 developmental importance

  • observing a behaviour doesn't tell us its developmental importance
  • feldmen 2012
  • ideas like synchrony give names to patterns of observable caregiver and baby behaviours
  • these are reliably observed, but not useful in understanding child development as it doesn't tell us the purpose of these behaviours
  • we cant be certain from observational research alone that reciprocity and synchrony are important for childs development