Caregiver infant interactions

Question 1

What is attachment

Answer 1

A strong emotional and reciprocal bon d between two people, in which each individual sees the other as essential for their own emotional security.

Question 2

What is reciprocity

Answer 2

A two-way mutual process where each party responds to the others signal to sustain interaction.

Question 3

What is interactional synchrony

Answer 3

A caregiver and a baby reflect actions and emotions of each other in a co-ordinated way that mirrors one another.

Question 4

What was Meltzoff and Moore’s study

Answer 4

Observed interactional synchrony in babies as young as 2 weeks, an adult shows 3 facial expressions, the abbies repsonses were filmed.

Question 5

Meltzoff and Moore’s study findings

Answer 5

Babies’ expressions mirrored adults, showing imitations are deliberate.

Question 6

What was Isabella’s study

Answer 6

Observed 30 mothers and babies to assess the degree of synchrony and the quality of mother-baby attachment.

Question 7

Isabella’s study findings

Answer 7

Higher levels of synchrony associated with better baby-mother attachment.

Question 8

What was Tronick’s study

Answer 8

Mothers interact as normal before looking away and returning with a still face and restraining from response to the baby.

Question 9

Tronick’s study findings

Answer 9

Babies become distressed from lack of interaction with the mothers, showing they are active and intentional partners in communication.

Question 10

Difficult to interpret infants behaviour

Answer 10

Observations do not explain why the baby is doing it meaning we don’t know if it is on purpose.

Question 11

Meltzoff and Moore using controlled observations

Answer 11

Small details are recorded meaning nothing is lost and can be reanalysed, also can be checked for inter-rater reliability.

Question 12

Practical issues in studying infants

Answer 12

They need constant care, observations can be interrupted with feeding or nappy changes, limiting data collected.

Question 13

Caregivers being aware that they are watched

Answer 13

They may show more interaction to seem like a good mother (demand charcteristics)

Question 14

Findings are socially sensitive

Answer 14

Suggests women should stay at home with the child, which some parents cannot do due to work, which may distress them.
Also subject to gender bias.