Caregiver-infant interactions

• From an early age, babies and caregivers have intense and meaningful interactions. The quality of these interactions is associated with the successful development of attachments. There are two types of interaction : reciprocity and interactional synchrony.
• Reciprocity

  Reciprocity is achieved when baby and caregiver respond to and elect responses from each other. Alert phases are the times where interaction is most likely to occur. Mothers successfully respond around two thirds of the time and from 3 months, this interaction becomes more intense and reciprocal. Traditional views of childhood have seen the baby in a passive role, receiving care from an adult. However, it seems that babies are active participants. Both caregiver and baby can initiate interactions and take turns to do so.
• Interational synchrony

  Interactional synchrony is the temporal co-ordination of micro level social behaviour e.g. caregiver and baby mirror eachothers behaviour.
• Interactional synchrony studys

  Meltzoff and Moore observed the beginnings of ineractional synchrony in babies as young as two weeks old. Adult displayed one of the three facial expressions or one of the three gestures and the responses were filmed. Babies expression and gestures were more likely to mirror caregivers than chance would predict

  
  

  Isabella observed 30 mothers and babies to assess the degree of synchrony and the quality of attachment. They found high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality attachment.
• Evaluation

  One strength of the research on this topic is the use of filmed observations. Mother-baby interactions are usually filmed, often from multiple angles. Very fine datails of behaviour can be recorded and analysed later. Also, babies don't know they are being observed, so their behaviour does not change in response to observation (no demand charateristics). This means the studies have good reliability and validity.
• Evaluation

  One limitation for the research is the difficulty in observing babies. It is hard to observe babies behaviour as they are not very co-ordinated. We just observe small gestures and small changes in expression. It is also hard to interpret the meaning of babies' movements, e.g. deciding if a hand movement is important or just a twitch. This means we cannot be certain that any particular interactions observed between baby and caregiver are meaningful.
• Evaluation

  One limitation is practical value versus costs. Research into early interactions has allowed psychologists to improve the quality of caregiver-infant attachment. However, this kind of research is socially sensitive because it can be used to argue that mothers should focus on interacting with their baby and not return to work. This means that the practical value may be outweighed by its negative social consequences.