Attachment - caregiver infant interactions Flashcards
What is attachment?
Attachment is a deep and enduring emotional bond that connects one person to another across time.
Why is attachment important?
Human babies are altricial which means that they are born at a relatively early stage of development. They need to form bonds with adults who will protect and nurture them.
How do babies and mothers communicate?
Non-verbal conversation.
What is reciprocity?
Describes that infant caregiver interaction is a two way mutual process and each party responds to the other signals to sustain interaction. The behaviour of each party elicits a response from the other.
What is interactional synchrony?
This is when two people interact and they tend to mirror what the other is doing simultaneously in terms of their facial expressions and body movements.
What is the procedure in the key study into interactional synchrony?
Meltzoff and Moore interactional synchrony.
Procedure: lab experiment using infants who were 2 to 3 weeks old. The study was conducted using an adult model who displayed one of three facial expressions or gestures.. a dummy was placed in the infants mouth during the initial displayed to prevent any response following the display the dummy was removed and child’s expression was filmed.
What were the findings of Meltzoff and Moore study into interactional synchrony?
They found that there was an association between the infant behaviour and that of the adult model.
What was the conclusion of Meltzoff and Moore study into interactional synchrony?
It can be concluded that interactional synchrony does exist.
Why do Meltzoff and Moore believe imitation is innate?
In a later study they demonstrated that same synchrony with infants only three days old the fact that infants as young as this were displaying the behaviour would appear to rule out the possibility that the imitated behaviours were learnt and they must be innate.
What is the importance for attachment?
- Isabella et al (1989) observed 30 mothers and babies together measuring the degree of synchrony. They also assess the quality of mother and baby attachment.
- They found that high levels of synchrony were associated with better mother-baby attachment.
What is a strength into the research of caregiver infant interactions?
Usually highly controlled and therefore has good validity - observations of mother infant interactions are generally filmed from multiple angles ensuring that very fine detail of behaviour can be recorded and later analysed - furthermore babies don’t know or care that they are being observed. Their behaviour does not change in response to controlled observation which is generally a problem for observational research. - the field has good internal validity.
What is a limitation of Meltzoff and Moore’s research into interactional synchrony?
Lacks reliability due to the methodological problems with studying interactional synchrony using observational methods - recent research by Koepke et al failed to replicate the findings of M&M There is a possibility of observed bias whether the researcher consciously or unconsciously interpret behaviour to support their findings - to address this the observer should use inter-observer reliability - this lack of research support suggest the results are unreliable and there needs to be more researched to validate their findings.
What is a limitation of the research into caregiver infant interactions?
Methodological issues when observing infants - studies involving observation of interactions between mothers and infant have shown the same patterns however what is being observed is mainly hand movements or changes in expression - it is difficult to be certain what is taking place from the infants perspective whether the imitation is conscious and deliberate or not - therefore there may be low construct validity because we cannot really know for certain that these behaviours seen in mother infant interaction have a special meaning.
