Attachment: caregiver and infant interactions

Question 1

What is caregiver infant interactions?

Answer 1

Communication and interactions between infant and parent

Question 2

What does the research say about caregiver infant interactions?

Answer 2

It says babies actively signal when they want to communicate

Question 3

What are the types of interactions?

Answer 3

Interactional synchrony
Reciprocity

Question 4

What is interactional synchrony?

Answer 4

.baby and mother mirror actions and emotions of each other -from around 2 weeks old

Question 5

What is reciprocity?

Answer 5

Mother and infant respond to each others signals and elicit a response -like a sustained conversation
-from 3 months

Question 6

Who did the study in research to caregiver infant interactions?

Answer 6

Meltzoff and Moore

Question 7

What was the procedure of the study?

Answer 7

-adult displayed 1 of 3 facial expression eg: tongue protrusion
-baby and adult we’re filmed from multiple angles
-watched in slow motion

Question 8

What were the strengths of the study?

Answer 8

.well controlled procedures -interactions filmed, watched in slow motion from multiple angles -increasing inter-observer reliability
-no demand characteristics (babies cannot guess the aim of the study) so high validity as there is no extraneous variables

Question 9

What was a negative of the study?

Answer 9

-hard to investigate infant behaviour (behaviour cannot be followed up by questions for explanation) so can’t tell wether behaviour has meaning