Attachment - Caregiver-infant interactions Flashcards
Reciprocity definition
A description of how two people interact. Caregiver-infant interactions are reciprocal as they respond to one another’s signals and then elicit a new response from the other. Reciprocity is essential in conversations throughout life!
What are alert phases?
Periodic phases in which babies signal that they are ready for some interaction.
What research has been made on alert phases?
Feldman and Eidelman 2007 showed that mothers pick up on and respond to their babies alert phases around 2/3s of the time.
Finegood 2016 says this varies to the skill of a mother and external factors such as stress.
Feldman 2007 found from 3 months this interaction becomes increasingly frequent and both the mother and baby learn to pay close attention to each other’s verbal signals and facial expressions.
What is active involvement?
In contrast to traditional views of childhood showing a baby’s role as passive, both the infant and caregiver play an active role in initiating interactions in their relationship and appear to take turns in doing so. (T.Brazelton says reciprocity and active involvement is similar to a dance!)
Interactional synchrony definition
Caregiver- and infants reflect both the actions and emotions of the other and do this is a co-ordinated (synchronised) way.
Describe the case study into interactional synchrony and when it begins.
Meltzoff and Moore 1977 observed the beginnings of synchrony in babies as young as 2 weeks old. The babies filmed and labelled responses 1 in 3 facial expressions and 1 in 3 distinctive gestures where more likely to mirror those of the adults than chance would predict - there was a significant association!
Describe the case study into interactional synchrony and its importance for attachment.
Isabella et al. 1989 observed 30 mothers and babies and assessed the degree of synchrony and the quality of their attachment.
They found high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality (e.g. more emotionally intense) mother-baby attachment.
Explain the strengths of research into caregiver-infant interactions.
Use of filmed observations - fine details can be analysed repeatedly by multiple researchers and the babies don’t know they’re being observed so behaviour remains natural…good reliability and validity.
Practical value - allows psychologists to improve the quality of caregiver-infant attachment e.g. Parent Child Interaction Therapy.
Explain the limitations of research into caregiver-infant interactions.
Difficulty of observing babies - they are not coordinated! Only small gestures and changes in expression can be observed let alone the meaning behind those movements. We can’t be certain from observations that reciprocity or synchrony are important in development.
Difficulty in inferring developmental importance - Feldman 2012 highlights how synchrony and reciprocity are behaviours observed in caregiver-infant interactions. They are robust phenomena as they’re reliably observed but aren’t useful as we don’t know its purpose. We cannot be certain from observations alone that they are are important behaviours in development…COUNTERPOINT - Isabella et al. 1989 study.
