Attachment- caregiver infant interactions

signs of attachment

proximity, stranger anxiety and separation anxiety

how we see caregiver- infant interactions

interactional synchrony, imitation, reciprocity, sensitive responsiveness

interactional synchrony

adults and babies respond in time to sustain communication

imitation

infant mimics/copies the adults behaviour

reciprocity

interaction flows both ways between adult and infant (taking it in turns)as a two-way process responding to each others signals.

sensitive responsiveness

adult attends sensitivity to infants communications

research for reciprocity

1970s (Jaffe et al) demonstrated that infants coordinated their actions with caregivers which can be described as like a 'non verbal conversation'. From birth, babies move in a rhythm when interacting with an adult, almost as if they are taking turns, as people do in a conversation.

nteractional synchrony

Meltzoff and Moore- Observational research showed that infants will imitate adult facial expressions and hand gestures.

Meltzoff and Moore

Procedure: Infants aged as between 12 and 27 days old were shown facial gestures (e.g. sticking their tongue out) and manual gestures (e.g. waving fingers) to see if the infant would imitate the behaviour. The adult showed one of three different gestures to assess the response and a dummy was placed in the infant's mouth to prevent a direct response. Following the display, the dummy was removed. All the responses were recorded on video.

Results: Infants as young as 12 days old could imitate both facial and manual gestures.

Conclusion: The ability to imitate serves as an important building block for later development/ communication therefore must be innate.

evaluation stregths

The use of clear controlled observations, specifically filming of mother-child interactions ensure a detailed analysis meaning the validity of the findings must be strong.

evaluation limitations

- It is difficult to test infant behaviour as infant's behaviour is very irrational and may occur by chance.

- Difficulties with replication of research as few researchers have replicated the findings.

- As babies cannot communicate, much of this is based on inference meaning we cannot be certain on causes of behaviour.

- There are practical issues with research as babies are often being fed or asleep making research difficult to conduct.

there are economic implications of this theory as it would suggets that mothers should remain with their children for two years which would impact maternity leave time, the influence of the father on the relationship and therefore the economy through employment rights. This would impact day-care servcices.