CAREGIVER-INFANT INTERACTION

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Created by
Carys Evans

Cards (10)

  • What is attatchment?
    an emotional relationship between two people in which each seeks closeness and feels secure when in the presence of each other
  • What is reciprocity?
    description of how two people interact, shared relationship where they respond to each others signals and elicit a response from each other
  • what is interactional synchrony?
    Coordinated and mirroring behaviors between individuals during social interactions.
  • what are alert phases?
    when the baby signals they are ready for interaction, mothers successfully responded around 2/3 of the time. The reciprocity becomes more intense from around 3 months
  • are babies active in reciprocity?
    yes, both caregiver and baby initiate interactions with each other. not just caregiver
  • how did Meltzoff and Moore research interactional synchrony?
    observed the beginning of IS in babies as young as two weeks old. Adult displayed 1 of 3 facial expressions or gestures and filmed the babies response
  • what were Meltzoff and Moores results?
    an association was found between the expression or gesture and the action of the baby
  • Why is interactional synchrony important?
    Isabella et al observed 30 mothers and babies together and found high levels of synchrony creates higher quality attachment. Provides the necessary foundation for the mother and baby connection which can be built upon
  • Strengths of caregiver infant research
    Use of filmed observations: very fine details can be analysed later so you don’t miss anything, babies dont know they are being observed is behaviour won’t change
    Uses well controlled procedures which increases the validity
  • limitations of caregiver infant research
    difficult to observe babies : not very coordinated and hard to interpret meaning of babies movements, can’t be sure everything observed is meaningful
    difficulty inferring developmental importance : research points out that synchRonny simply describes behaviours at the same time but it doesn’t tell us the purpose so can’t be sure they are important
    COUNTERPOINT : Isabella et al