caregiver infant interactions

• an attachment is an emotional bond between two people usually between a primary caregiver and child. it is characterised by the infants desire to keep proximity to an individual and expression of distress when seperated
• from birth, babies and mothers spend intense time together. babies have an alert phase and signal when they are ready for interaction. mothers pick up on and respond to infant alertness around 2/3 of the time - Feldman and Eidlman. from around 3 months, this interaction tends to be increasingly frequent and involves close attenton to expressions - Feldman
• reciprocity is when the infant and caregiver elicit a response from each other similar to a conversation. it is when they reciprocate each others interactions
• both mother and child can initiate interactions and they appear to take turns in doing so. Brazelton et al described this interaction as a dance because it is just like a couples dance where each partner reponds to each others moves
• Tronick 1978 conducted the still face experiment which looked into reciprocity between infant and caregiver
• Tronick procedure: a mother faces her baby and is asked to hold a still face in which she does not react to the babys behaviours. the reactions of the baby are observed.
• Tronick findings: in general the baby will become agitated by failed attempts to evoke a reaction in the mother. babies of depressed mothers have been shown to exhibit a lesser reaction and baby boys have been found to have more difficulty than girls in maintaining affective regulation during the procedure
• the still face experiment reveals the importance of interaction. the infant quickly becomes distressed. at this age the child cannot regulate emotions so will continue this distress until the care giver re-engages with the infant. the importance of interaction at this young age suggests that infants are born ready to interact - it is an innate ability
• interactional synchrony is when the infant cand caregiver mirror what the other is doing. this includes actions and emotions. it is coordinated interaction
• Melztoff and Moore 1977 did a study called facial expressions which looked into interactional synchrony
• Meltzoff and Moore procedure: 1. controlled observation of infants aged 2-3 weeks old 2. they looked at four different stimuli and observed the behaviour of infants in response 3. to record observations an observer watched videotapes of the infants behaviour in real time, slow motion and frame by frame 4. a dummy was placed in the mouth of the infant in the initial display 5. following the display, the dummy was removed and the child was filimed 6. the video was judged by independant observers 7. each observers were asked to note all instances of tongue protrusions and head movements
• Meltzoff and Moore method: each observer was asked to note all instances of infant tongue protrustions and head movements using these four behavioural categories 1. mouth opening = abrupt jaw drop 2. termination of mouth opening = return lips to their closed position 3. tongue protrustion = clear foward thrust of tongue 4. termination of tongue protrustion = retraction of tip of tongue behind lower lip
• Meltzoff and Moore method: each observer scored the tapes twice so that intra observer and inter observer reliablity could be calculated
• Meltzoff and Moore results: all scores were greater than 92 meaning they found a relationship between the infant behaviour and the adult model
• in a later study Meltzoff and Moore demonstrated interactional synchrony with 3 day old infants. the findings were what was expected meaning that this behaviour must be innate and not due to other factors
• one criticism of research investigating caregiver infant interactions is the effect of individual differences. Isabella et al found that more strongly attached infant caregiver pairs showed greater interactional synchrony. Furthermore, Heimann showed that infants who demonstrate a lot of imitation from birth onwards have been found to have a better quality if relationship at three months. this suggests that children interact differentley with interactional synchrony meaning Meltzoff and Moore overlooked individual difference. this means that previous research may be unreliable
• interactional synchrony can be applied to later adult relationships. Meltzoff proposed a like me hypothesis. first, there is a connection between what the infant sees and their imitation of this. next, infants associate their own acts and their underlying mental states. last, infants project their own internal experiences onto others performing similar acts. this means infants can learn what others are thinking to develop relationships. this shows the importance of international synchrony research in understanding adult relationships
• one strength of examining infant behaviours comes from research investigating intentional behaviour. Abravanel and DeYong observed infant behaviour when interacting with two objects. one simulating tongue movements and the other mouth opening/ closing. they found that infants of median age 5 and 12 weeks made little response to the objects. they concluded that this shows that infants do not just imitate anything they see and it is a specific social response to other humans