Psychopathology: Reciprocity and interactional synchrony, discuss infant care giver interactions

AO1

reciprocity def - is when an infant responds to the actions of another by turn taking

interactions between caregivers and infants provide an insight into the type of nature of attachment

actions of primary caregiver elicits a response from the infant

interactions between them flow back and fourth

meltzoff and moore ( conducted an observational study whereby an adult displayed facial expressions or a hand gesture. Following the display from the model, a dummy was removed from the Childs mouth and their expressions filmed. )

there is an association between the infants behaviour and that of adult model, showing reciprocity

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interactional synchrony def - takes place when infants mirror the actions or emotions of another person e.g their facial expressions

child will move their body or carry out same act as their caregiver simultaneously, and the two are said to be synchronised

this serves to sustain communication between the two caregiver and infant.

AO3 limitation - reliability of testing children

one limitation of research into caregiver-infant interactions is the questionable reliability of testing children.

this is because infants move their mouths and wave their arms constantly, which is an issue for researchers investigating intentional behaviour

therefore we cannot be certain that the infants were engaging in interactional synchrony or reciprocity as some of the behaviour may have occurred by chance

this questions the validity of the research in relation to reciprocity nd interactional synchrony and suggests that psychologists should be cautious when interpreting the findings from research in this area

AO3 - methodologcial problems - observer bias

there are methodological problems with studying international synchrony using observational methods

there is the possibility of observer bias where the researchers consciously or unconsciously interpret behaviour to support their findings

to address this problem, more than one observer should be used to examine the inter observer reliability of the observations

recent research Kopek et al failed to replicate the findings of Meltzoff and Moore which suggests that their results of research examining infant caregiver interactions are unreliable

AO3 - further criticism

A further criticism of Meltzoff and Moores research is that recent research has found that only securely attached infants engage in interactional synchrony

Isabella et al found that the more securely attached the infant, the greater the level of interactional synchrony

this suggests that not all children engage in interactional synchrony and that Meltzoff and Moores original findings may have overlooked individual differences which could be a mediating factor