1.caregiver infant interactions Flashcards
define ATTACHMENT
a strong, emotional, and reciprocal bond between two people, especially an infant and caregiver.
It endures over time.
From the start babies have meaningful social interactions with their carers. Psychologists believe that these interactions have
important functions for the child’s social development.
In particular, good quality and early social interactions are associated with the successful development of attachments between babies and their caregivers.
ALERT PHASES:
babies have periodic ‘alert phases’ in which they signal (e.g. making eye contact) that they are ready for a spell of interaction. Research shows that mothers typically pick up on and respond to their baby’s alertness around two-thirds of the time although this varies according to the skill of the mother and external factors such as stress.
ACTIVE INVOLVEMENT:
babies as well as caregivers actually take quite an active role. Both caregiver and baby can initiate interactions and they appear to take turns in doing so.
RECIPROCITY
An interaction is said to show reciprocity when
each person responds to the other and elicits a response from them a caregiver might respond to his baby’s smile by saying something and then this in turn elicits a response from his baby.
This kind of reciprocal interaction is also sometimes called ‘turn-taking’.
INTERACTIONAL SYNCHRONY
Two people are said to be ‘synchronised’ when
they carry out the same action simultaneously.
It takes place when caregiver and baby interact in such a way that their actions and emotions mirror the other.
Isabella et al. observed
and found
30 mothers and babies together and assessed the degree of synchrony. The researchers also assessed the quality of mother-baby attachment.
They found that high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother-baby attachment.
SYNCHRONY STUDY: Meltzoff and Moore observed the beginnings of interactional synchrony in babies.
PROCEDURE
An adult displayed one of three facial expressions or one of three distinctive gestures. The baby’s response was filmed and labelled by independent observers.
Meltzoff and Moore
FINDINGS
Babies’ expression and gestures were more likely to mirror those of the adults more than chance would predict -> a significant association.
It is believed that interactional synchrony is important for the development of caregiver-infant attachment.
AO3: limitation of INFANT-CAREGIVER INTERACTIONS
may not be useful - Feldman
A further limitation is that simply observing a behaviour does not tell us its developmental importance.
Feldman points out that ideas like synchrony and reciprocity simply give names to patterns of observable caregiver and baby behaviours. These are robust phenomena in the sense that they can be reliably observed, but they still may not be particularly useful in understanding child development as it does not tell us the purpose of these behaviours.
This means that we cannot be certain from observational research alone that reciprocity and synchrony are important for a child’s development.
AO3: strength of INFANT-CAREGIVER INTERACTIONS
high control - good validity and reliability
One strength of the research on this topic is that caregiver-infant interactions are usually filmed in a laboratory.
This means that other activity, that might distract a baby, can be controlled. Also, using films means that observations can be recorded and analysed later. Therefore, it is unlikely that researchers will miss seeing key behaviours. Furthermore, having filmed interactions means that more than one observer can record data and establish the inter-rater reliability of observations. Finally, babies don’t know they are being observed, so their behaviour does not change in response to observation (demand characteristics is generally the main problem for overt observations).
Therefore, the data collected in such research should have good reliability and validity.
AO3: limitation of INFANT-CAREGIVER INTERACTIONS
hard to interpret baby’s behaviour
One limitation of research into caregiver-infant interaction is that it is hard to interpret a baby’s behaviour.
Young babies lack co-ordination and much of their bodies are almost immobile. The movements being observed are just small hand movements or subtle changes in expression. It is difficult to be sure, for example, whether a baby is smiling or just passing wind. It is also difficult to determine what is taking place from the baby’s perspective. For example, we cannot know whether a movement such as a hand twitch is random or triggered by something the caregiver has done.
This means we cannot be certain that the behaviours seen in caregiver-infant interactions have a special meaning.
