caregiver-infant interactions

• Attachment

  = a close two-way emotional bond between two individuals in which each individual sees the other as essential for their own emotional security.

  Behaviour:

  • proximity= people try to stay physically close to their attachment figure.
  • separation distress= people show signs of anxiety when an attachment figure leaves their presence.
  • secure-base behaviour= tend to make regular contacts with figure
• reciprocity

  = both caregiver and baby respond to each other's signals and each elicits a response from the other.

  • alert phases
  • active involvement
• alert phases

  = babies have periodic alert phases in which they signal (eg: making eye contact) that they are ready for interaction.

  • research shows that mother typically pick up on and respond to their baby's alertness around 2/3 of the time.
  • from around 3 months this interaction tends to become increasingly frequent and involves both mother and baby paying close attention to each other's verbal signals and facial expressions.
• active involvements

  = both caregiver and baby can initiate interactions and they appear to take turns in doing so.

  • Brazelton described this interaction as a 'dance', the caregiver and baby can respond to each others signals.
• interactional synchrony

  = when a caregiver and baby interact in such a way that their actions and emotions mirror each other.

  • synchrony begins= Meltzoff and Moore observed the beginnings of interactional synchrony in babies as young as 2 weeks old. An adult displayed 1 of 3 facial expressions or gestures. babies' expression and gestures were more likely to mirror those of the adults.
• importance of interactional synchrony for attachment

  Isabella observed 30 mothers and babies together and assessed their degree of synchrony and the quality of mother-baby attachment.

  • found high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother-baby attachment.
• Evaluation- filmed observations

  caregiver-infant interacts are filmed in a lab.

  • can control any distractions for the baby.
  • filmed observations can be recorded and analysed later so unlikely researchers will miss seeing key behaviour.
  • more than 1 observer can record data and establish the inter-rater reliability.
  • babies don't know they are being observed so they don't change their behaviour.
  • therefore data collected has good reliability and validity.
• Evaluation- difficulty observing babies

  hard to interpret a baby's behaviour.

  • babies lack co-ordination and much of their bodies are almost immobile. The movements being observed are just small hand movements or subtle changes in expression.
  • difficult to determine what is taking place from the baby's perspective.
  • so we can't be certain that the behaviours seen in caregiver-infant interactions have a special meaning.
• Evaluation- developmental importance

  limitation= simply observing behaviour doesn't tell us its developmental importance.

  • Feldman points out that ideas like synchrony simply give names to patterns of observable caregiver and baby behaviours.
  • not particularly useful in understanding child development as it does not tell us the purpose of these behaviours.
  • can't be certain from observational research alone that reciprocity and synchrony are important for a child's development
• Evaluation- counterpoint

  Isabella found that achievement of interactional synchrony predicted the development of a good quality attachment.

  • so caregiver-infant interaction is probably important in development.