1. Reciprocity and Interactional Synchrony

• what is attachment?

  an emotional relationship between an infant and a primary caregiver
• two types of interactions

  - reciprocity

  
  

  - interactional synchrony
• Importance of response between infant and primary caregiver

  builds an emotional bond
• reciprocity

  when an infant responds to the actions of another person for example smiling - both infant and caregiver will smile
• research on reciprocity

  tronick et al - asked mothers who had been enjoying a dialogue with their baby to stop moving and maintain static - babies try to tempt their mothers to interact by smiling themselves

  
  

  results: baby became distressed and puzzled when their smile did not provoke a response
• which research study on reciprocity describes reciprocity as a dance?

  Brazelton et al - when couples dance they respond to each others movements and rhythm - interaction between caregiver and infant flows back and fourth
• interactional synchrony

  when infants mirror a persons actions or emotions such as facial expressions e.g matching behaviour or emotional states

  
  

  the child will move their body or carry out the same act as their caregiver
• research on interactional synchrony

  meltzoff and moore: an experimenter displayed facial gestures such as sticking a tongue out and opening their mouth in shock to 12-21 day old infants which were filmed and observed by people who were blind to the experiment. A dummy was placed in the infants mouth to prevent any response. After the display the dummy was removed and the childs expression was filmed

  
  

  results: infants responses matched the experimenters facial expressions - imitation is present from a very early age
• evaluation - strengths

  - many studies use multiple observers who were blind to the true aims of the experiment to provide inter rater reliability which indicates high internal validity

  
  

  - modern technology such as cameras were used to document and slow down interactions that may have not observable in real time allowing researchers to review the evidence
• evaluation - weaknesses

  - we cannot be certain about the purpose behind this behaviour - unclear if the hand movement is a response to a caregiver or a reflex

  
  

  - infants cannot directly communicate their thoughts or emotions so care-giver infant interactions depend on inferences which are unscientific

  
  

  - social sensitivity - some women may find their life choices critcised such as mothers who decide to return to work after giving birth and cannot develop a high level of interactional synchrony with their infant

  
  

  - culture bias - Le vine et al 1994 reported that kenyan mothers have little physical interactions with their infants and they still had high proportion of secure attachments showing that attachments can occur without the need for the child to imitate