Attachment

Is an emotional bond between two people.

It is a two-way process that endures over time.

Each individual sees the other as essential for their own emotional security.

Attachment in humans takes a few months to develop.

It leads to certain behaviours such as clinging (separation distress) and proximity seeking, and serves the function of protecting an infant (secure base)

Reciprocity

Turn taking and responding.

Eliciting a response from the other

But doesn't necessarily mean responding with the same behaviours.

Two way

E.g caregiver talks to baby and baby babbles back

Interactional synchrony

Infant and caregiver mirror each other i.e imitate the same behaviours in a synchronised fashion (in time with each other)

Move in time with each other e.g. both turn heads at same time/both smile at the same time.

E.g both clap when playing or singing nursery rhymes

Babies have ‘alert phases’ and signal they are ready for interaction

Mothers (typically) pick up on and respond to alertness (2 thirds of time-Feldman and Eidelman 2007)

Research

Meltzoff and Moore

Observed the beginnings of interactional synchrony infants as young as 2 weeks old.

An adult displayed one of three facial expression or one of three distinctive gestures.

Child’s response was filmed

Findings– babies as young as 12-27 days would attempt to imitate facial and physical gestures.

Reciprocity

Jaffe (1973) demonstrated that infants coordinated their actions with caregivers in a conversation. From birth babies move in a rhythm wheninteracting with an adult almost as if they were taking turns, as people do when having a conversation. One person leans forward and speaks and then its the other persons turn = Reciprocity.

Brazelton (1979) this rhythm is important for later communication. The regularity of the infant signals allows the caregiver to anticipate future behaviour = lays foundations of attachment.

Isabella (89) observed 30 mothers and infants together and assessed the degree of synchrony.

The researchers also assessed the quality of mother-infant attachment.

They found high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother-infant attachments.

Evaluation

The use of filmed observations

Mother-baby interactions are usually filmed from multiple angles – very fine details of behaviour can be recorded and analysed later

Babies do not know they are being observed, so their behaviour does not change in response to observation (an issue for most observational research)

This means that studies have good reliability and validity

Problems with testing infant behaviour

Infants mouths are constantly in motion, the expressions tested occur frequently – this makes it difficult to distinguish between imitated behaviour and general activity.

It is also hard to know if a hand movement is a response to the caregiver or a random twitch

This means we cannot be certain that any particular interactions observed between baby and caregiver are meaningful

+Meltzoff and Moore overcame this issue by filming infants and asking an observer to judge the infants behaviour when they didn’t know what behaviour was being imitate – increases internal validity.

Failure to Replicate

- Koepke (1983) failed to replicate Meltzoff and Moore study findings, could be as it was less carefully controlled.

Difficulty inferring developmental importance

Feldman (2012) says that synchrony and reciprocity simply describe behaviours that occur at the same time

These can be reliably observed but this may not be useful as it does not tell us their purpose

This means that we cannot be certain from observations that reciprocity or synchrony are important in development

How to overcome difficulties when trying to investigate caregiver–infant interaction

Problem of context affecting behaviour – research should take place in natural setting eg child’s home to increase validity

Most research is observational so bias in observer interpretation – may be countered by using more than one observer

Practical issues eg need for more shorter observation periods because of limited waking periods

Taking extra care in relation to ethics so as not to affect child/parent in any way e.g protection from harm, confidentiality etc.

key terms

Alert Phase: From birth babies signal when they are ready to interact.

Attachment: Is an emotional bond between two people. It is a two-way process that endures over time.

Baby Face Hypothesis: features Trigger for parenting as elicit our desire to look after and care for babies

Caregiver: a person who provides care and love.

Interactional Synchrony: caregiver and infant signals synchronise

Nature: opposite of nurture: predisposed to act in a certain way, in your genes

Nurture: learn from the environment

Innate: born with, pre programmed

Reciprocity: caregivers-infant interaction is reciprocal, each persons interaction affects the other.

What is meant by ‘reciprocity’ in the context of caregiver-infant interaction? [2 marks]

2. Briefly evaluate research into caregiver-infant interaction. [4 marks]