Caregiver-infant interactions

Reciprocity

- An interaction is said to show this when each person responds to the other and evokes a response from them e.g. a caregiver might respond to his baby's smile by saying something and then this in turn evokes a response from his baby

Recriprocity- Alert phases

- Babies have these periodically in which they signal (e.g. making eye contact) that they are ready for a spell of interaction. From around three months it becomes increasingly frequent, involving both mother and baby paying close attention to each other (Feldman 2007)

- Research shows that mothers typically pick up on and respond to their baby's alertness around two-thirds of the time (Feldman and Eidelman 2007), although this varies according to the skill of the mother and external factors such as stress (Finegood et al. 2016)

Reciprocity- Active involvement

- Traditional views of childhood have portrayed babies in a passive roles, receiving care from a adult. However, it seems that babies as well as caregivers can have a role. Both caregiver and baby can initiate interactions and they appear to take turns in doing so

- Brazelton et al (1975) described this interaction as a 'dance' because it is just like a couple's dance where each partner responds to the other person's moves

Interactional synchrony

- The temporal co-ordination of micro-level social behaviour (Feldman 2007)

- It takes place when caregiver and baby interact in such a way that their actions and emotions mirror the other

Interactional synchrony- Synchrony begins

- Meltzoff and Moore (1977) observed the beginnings of interactional synchrony in babies as young as two weeks old

- 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.

- Babies' expression and gestures were more likely to mirror those of the adults more than chance would predict

Interactional synchrony- Importance for attachment

- Isabella et al (1989) observed 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 (the emotional intensity of the relationship)

Evaluation- Strengths (1)

- 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

- Therefore, the data collected in such research should have good reliability and high internal validity

Evaluation- Weaknesses

- It is difficult 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 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 sure certain that the behaviours seen in caregiver-infant interactions have a special meaning

Evaluation- Strengths (2)

• One strength of Meltzoff and Moore comes from a replication of the study conducted by the authors six years later.

• Meltzoff and Moore (1983) replicated their study with infants as young as three-days old. The found that even infants this young demonstrated the same synchrony, suggesting that the behavior is innate.

• This suggests that the original findings were reliable and that caregiver-infant

  interactions are an innate mechanism used to help develop an attachment bond.

What are features of caregiver-infant interactions

• Reciprocity

• Alert phases

• Active involvement

• Interactional synchrony

Weakness 2

FIndividual differences- there are some variations between infants that affect interactional synchrony .Isabella at al(1989) found that infants that were more strongly attached  to the caregiver showed greater interactional synchrony.