ATTACHMENT-Caregiver -infant interactions Flashcards
What are the two types of caregiver-infant interactions?
-Reciprocity
-Interactional synchrony
Do babies have alert phases and signals when they are ready for interaction?
Yes
At what age does this interaction become more frequent and who suggested this?
-3 months
-Feldman (2007)
What two things do the infants pay close attention to?
-Facial expressions
-Verbal signals
Define reciprocity
a type of interaction between two people in which one person’s contribution (e.g., a smile, a greeting) is followed by the other person’s contribution
Define interactional synchrony
The mirroring action of facial expressions, bodily movements and/or emotions between two people
What was the procedure of the Meltzolf and Moore study?
-Observed early signs of interactional synchrony in babies as young as 2 weeks old
-An adult displayed one of three facial expressions or distinctive gestures
-The child’s response was filmed and identified by independent researchers
What were the results of the Meltzolf and Moore study?
-An association was found between the expression/gesture displayed by the adult and the actions of the babies
Give 2 strengths of the Meltzolf and Moore study
-Tested in controlled conditions, judged by independent observers who had no knowledge of what the infant had just seen, increases the validity
-Not subjective as they were judged by independent observers so cannot be biased
Give a limitations of the Meltzolf and Moore study (infants unreliable behaviour)
-Infants’ behaviours are unreliable, they can have involuntary movements due to their reflexes
-Using infants and babies in research can make it difficult to test their behaviours
-Infants lack coordinated movements and tend to move their limbs randomly
-Infants ‘test’ out facial expressions independent from any interaction with an adult or caregiver
-It is difficult to distinguish between their general behaviours and specific actions in response to an adult
-This means that there is no certainty to the findings
-but to reduce any inaccuracy the experiment was filmed so it could be analysed by an independent observer
What age do babies typically become attached to their mothers?
7 months
What did Grossman (2002) suggest?
The quality of children’s attachments was more important than the quantity of them
What kind of study did Grossman (2002) suggest
A longitudinal study (investigated both parent’s behaviour and its relationship to the quality of children’s attachment into their teenage years)
What did Feild (1978) do?
-Filmed 4 month old babies in face-to-face interaction with their priamary caregiver
-Primary caregiver fathers spent more time smiling, imitating and playing with infants than secondary caregivers
The reciprocal relationship between infant and caregiver lays the foundations for…
Secure attachment
Give a limitation of interactional synchrony and reciprocity (purpose)
-The purpose of synchrony and reciprocity. A problem with the research into synchrony and
reciprocity is that the findings do not tell us the reason why such behaviours in caregiver-infant
interactions occur
- All the study can do is describe what is happening between the mother and the
infant. Other psychologists disagree with this view and offer several reasons why these behaviours
occur
-For example, Isabella (1989) demonstrated the importance of interactional synchrony, when
he found high levels of synchrony were associated with a higher quality infant-mother attachment,
suggesting that such behaviours are helpful in the development of attachment.
-However, Le Vine et al. (1994) reported that Kenyan mothers have little physical contact or interaction with their infants,
but such infants still develop secure attachments. -This suggests that reciprocity and interactional
synchrony is not found in all cultures, (could be culturally biased) which weakens the idea that they are necessary for the development of attachment
Give a limitation of caregiver-infant interactions
-Socially sensitive. A weakness of research (as in the study by Isabella) into early caregiver-infant
interactions is that it is socially sensitive.
-This is because the implications of findings suggest that low levels of caregiver-infant interaction lead to insecure attachment, which may continue into adulthood.
-The findings not only poses a dilemma for working mothers, but also reinforce gender stereotypes
that women should prioritise childcare over their career – they should stay at home.
-Some people may criticise this view because appears to discourage women from being mothers with a career.
Give a strength of meltzoff and moores study
-Meltzoff and Moore’s study on interactional synchrony was filmed
-This means that observations can be analysed later and there is no ambiguity to the baby’s responses as researchers will not miss any behaviours
-Using infants at such a young age (two-three weeks old) means that they are unaware they are being filmed so their behaviour will not change in response to being recorded (which is more likely with older subjects being filmed)
-Therefore data collected will have high validity
-Also inter-rater reliability can be
established by having independent observers re-watch the tapes and compare their findings to see
if they were similar and thus reliable.
