Caregiver-infant Interactions Flashcards
What are alert phases?
Signals to their caregiver that they are ready for interaction.
What is interactional synchrony?
When mother and infant mirror each others actions and emotions.
Outline Meltzof and Moore’s observations of interactional synchrony.
Meltzof and Moore observed interactional synchrony in infants as young as 2 weeks old. Adults displayed one of three facial expressions and gestures and the child’s response was filmed. Found an association between the expression and action of the child.
Outline Isabella et al.’s findings into interactional synchrony.
Observed 20 mothers and infants together and assessed the degree of synchrony and the quality of mother-infant attachment.
Found high levels are synchrony are associated with better quality mother-infant attachment.
What is reciprocity?
When each person responds to the other.
Who described reciprocity as a ‘dance’?
Brazleton et al.
Why is observation infants an issue?
Because we do not know exactly what is happening from the infants perspective, so we cannot be certain that behaviours in interaction have a special meaning.
Why is research into mother-infant interactions socially sensitive?
Because it suggests that mothers who return to work shortly after birth are restricting achieving interactional synchrony.
Explain how the research uses well-controlled procedures and why this is a strength.
Mother-infant interactions are filmed from multiple angles and fine details are recorded.
Babies also do not know they are being filmed so there is no change in behaviour.
This gives the studies good validity.
