Caregiver-Infant Interactions

• Define 'reciprocity'

  A description of how two people interact. Caregiver-infant interaction is reciprocal as both the caregiver and baby respond to each other's signals and each elicit responses from each other.
• Define 'interactional synchrony'

  Caregiver and baby reflect the actions and emotions of each other and do this in a coordinated way.
• Define 'attachment'

  - An attachment is a close two-way emotional bond between two individuals, in which each individual sees the other as essential for their emotional security.

  - Attachment in humans takes a few months to develop. Attachment can be recognised when the following behaviours are displayed:

  - Proximity seeking and secure base behaviour

  - Separation anxiety

  - Stranger anxiety
• Reciprocity - alert phases


  - Babies have periodic alert phases where they signal to their caregiver that they are ready for interaction, for example by making eye contact.

  - Feldman and Eidelman (2007) found that mothers typically pick up on and respond to their baby's alertness around 2/3 of the time, although this varies depending on the skill of the mother and external factors such as stress - Finegood et al. (2016).

  - From around 3 months, interaction becomes more frequent, and involves caregiver and infant paying close attention to each other's signals and facial expressions - Feldman (2007).
• Reciprocity - active involvement


  - Traditional views see babies as passive, however more modern views believe both babies and caregivers have an active role.

  - Caregiver and baby can both initiate interaction with the other, and seem to take turns doing so.

  - Brazelton et al. (1975) described this interaction as a 'dance'.
• Interactional synchrony - synchrony begins

  - Meltzoff and Moore (1977) observed the onset of interactional synchrony in babies as young as two weeks.

  - In their study, adults would display one of three facial expressions/gestures. Babies' responses were filmed and labelled by independent observers.

  - They found that babies mirrored the actions more than chance would predict, i.e. there was a significant association.
• Interactional synchrony - importance for attachment

  - Isabella et al. (1989) observed 30 mothers and babies together and assessed the degree of synchrony and quality of mother-baby attachment.

  - They found that high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother-baby attachment.
• Evaluating caregiver-infant interactions: Filmed observations


  - A strength is that caregiver-infant interactions are often filmed in a laboratory.

  - This means extraneous variables that may distract the baby can be controlled.

  - Filming observations also means that they can be analysed later, and any behaviours that weren't picked up on at the time can be recorded.

  - Inter-rater reliability of the observers can also be established as many observers can watch the recordings.

  - Moreover, babies are unaware that they are being observed and so won't change their behaviour, i.e. show demand characteristics.

  - This means that the data collected in these observations will have good reliability and validity.
• Evaluating caregiver-infant interactions: Difficulty observing babies


  - A limitation is that interpreting a baby's behaviour is difficult.

  - Young babies lack coordination and are almost immobile. The movements being observed are very small, such as hand movements and subtle expression changes.

  - It is difficult to determine what is taking place from the baby's perspective, for example, we don't know if a hand twitch is random or a response to something the caregiver has done.

  - This means that we cannot be sure that behaviours of caregiver-infant interactions have any meaning.
• Evaluating caregiver-infant interactions: Developmental importance (with counterpoint)


  - A limitation is that observing a behaviour does not tell us its developmental importance.

  - Feldman (2012) points out that ideas like interactional synchrony and reciprocity only give names to patterns of babies' observable behaviours.

  - These are robust phenomena in that they can be reliably observed, however, they may not be particularly valuable in understanding child development as it doesn't tell us the purpose of these behaviours.

  - This means that we cannot be certain from observational research that reciprocity and interactional synchrony are important for a child's development.

  
  

  - Counterpoint: However, other lines of research suggest that early interactions are important. Isabella et al. (1989) found that interactional synchrony predicted the development of a good quality attachment.

  - This suggests that caregiver-infant interactions are most likely important for development.
• Evaluating caregiver-infant interactions: Practical value vs. ethics


  - Research into caregiver-infant interaction has had practical applications in parenting skills training.

  - Crotwell et al. (2013) found that a 10 minute Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) improved interactional synchrony between 20 low-income mothers and their pre-school age children.

  - Conversely, research into caregiver-infant interactions is socially sensitive as it can be used to argue that a mother going back to work soon after birth may risk damaging the baby's development.