Caregiver-infant interactions

• Attachment is a close two way emotional bond between individuals inwhich each individual sees the other as essential for their ownemotional security
• What did Meltzoff and Moore do?(1977)

  Aim to investigate the age at which interactional synchronyoccurs between mother and child.

  -Videotaped 12 to 21 day-old babies asthey watched an adult experimenter perform different facialexpressions. An adult displayed one of three facial expressions orone of three distinctive gestures.-The childs’ response was filmed and identified by independentobservers. -An association was found between the expression of gesture theadult had displayed and the action of the baby.
• What is interactional synchrony?

  mother and infant carry out an action at the same time.

  actions are mirrored
• How do babies form attachments to parents through reciprocity?

  each person responds to the other and elicits a response from them.

  (mothers pick up and respond to babys alertness)
• Research shows that mothers pick up to babys alert phases around two thirds of the time(Feldman and Eidelman 2007),although this varies according to the skill of the mother and external factors eg stress(Finegood et al 2016)
• Both caregiver and baby can initate interactions and they appear to take turns in doing so. T. Berry Brazelton et al(1975) described this as a 'dance'.
• Isabella et al(1989) observed 30 mothers and babies together and assessed the degree of synchrony, whilst also assessing the quality of attachment.High levels of synchrony were seen to be associated with better quality mother-baby attachment.
• One strength of this is that the caregiver infant interactions are usually filmed in a lab, this meaning that other activity that could distract the baby can be controlled.Inter-rate reliability is also increased as the interactions are filmed in a lab, so researchers cannot miss key details.The babies also do not know they are being observed,so behaviour doesn't change.
• One limitation is that it is hard to interpret babys behaviour.Young babies lack co-ordination, and much of their bodies are almost immobile. eg baby smiling or wind?

  Another issue is that we don't know the babys action from their perspective eg was the twitch random or intended?
• What does Feldman suggest?(Limitation)

  ideas like synchrony simply give names to patterns of observable caregiver and baby behaviours.We therefore cannot be certain of the purpose of these behaviours.
• How does Isabelle at al argue against Feldman?

  Finds that early interactions are important.Achievement of interactional synchrony predicted the development of good quality attachment.