Attachment

Question 1

Briefly outline caregiver infant interactions and state the two main features of it

Answer 1

• babies have meaningful social interactions which have important functions in the child social development
• good quality early social interactions are associated with successful development of attachments
• two main features
  1. RECIPROCITY
  2. INTERACTIONAL SYNCHRONY

Question 2

Describe what’s meant by reciprocity

Answer 2

• babies and caregiver spend lots of time in intense and pleasurable interaction
• reciprocity is when each person responds to each other and elect to response from them
• e.g caregiver might respond to baby smile by saying something
• sometimes called turn taking
• Babies have periodic a lot phases in which they signal that they’re ready for a spell of interaction
• ALERT PHASES
• typically pick up on this 2/3 of the time (FELDMAN and EIDELMAN) although this varies according to skill of the mother and external factors
• From three months, it becomes more frequent and involves mother and baby paying close attention to each other verbal and facial signals (FELDMAN)
• ACTIVE INVOLVEMENT
• babies active not passive
• BRAZELTON= dance, either can initiate a spell of interaction

Question 3

Describe interactional synchrony

Answer 3

• The temporal coordination of microlevel behaviour (FELDMAN)
• When bb and caregiver interact in such a way that their actions and emotions mirror the other
• MELTZOFF and MOORE observed beginnings of interactional synchrony in babies his youngest two weeks:
• PROCEDURE
• An adult displayed one of three facial expressions or one of three distinctive gestures.
• The babies response was filmed and labelled by independent observers
• Babies expression and gestures mirrored each other more than chance would predict, there was significant association
• ISABELLA observed 30 mothers and babies and assessed both the degree of synchrony and quality of mother baby attachment
• FINDINGS= high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother baby attachment a.k.a. the emotional intensity of the relationship