Attachment : Caregiver-infant Interactions

Question 1

What is reciprocity?

Answer 1

The way in which 2 people interact. Caregiver-infant interactions are reciprocal as both the caregiver + baby respond to each other’s signals + each elicits a response from the other

Question 2

What is interactional synchrony?

Answer 2

Caregiver + baby reflect both the actions and emotions of the other in a coordinated (synchronised) way

Question 3

What are alert phases?

Answer 3

When a baby signals that they are ready for an interaction

Question 4

What did Feldman find about reciprocity?

Answer 4

• mothers typically pick up on and respond to their baby’s signals around 2/3 of the time
• and these interactions become more frequent from around 3 months

Question 5

What did Brazelton suggest about reciprocity?

Answer 5

Brazelton described caregiver-infant interactions to be like a dance as each person responds to the others moves

Question 6

What was the research carried out by Meltzoff + Moore around international synchrony?

Answer 6

Meltzoff and Moore
- observed interactional synchrony by watching + filming babies and their caregivers interact
- found that babies tended to mirror the expressions and gestures of their caregivers - there was a significant association

Question 7

What research did Isabella et al carry out around interactional synchrony?

Answer 7

Isabella et al.
- observed 30 mothers and babies together and assessed the degree of synchrony and the quality of attachment
- found that high levels of international synchrony were associated with better quality attachment

Question 8

What is a strength of research into caregiver-infant interactions?

Answer 8

✅ Caregiver infant interactions are usually filmed in a laboratory setting
- high control removes possible CVs (anything that may distract the baby)
- filming the observations means that they can be analysed again later so it is unlikely that researchers will miss key info, more than one researcher can observe - establishes inter-rater reliability of observations
- babies don’t know they are being observed so tend to behave naturally
This means data has good reliability and validity.

Question 9

What are the limitations of research into caregiver - infant interactions?

Answer 9

❌ It is difficult to interpret a baby’s behaviour
- young babies lack coordination and most movements tend to be small and subtle and it is difficult to determine whether these movements are random or an intentional response to a caregiver
This means it is unclear whether the behaviours observed in caregiver-infant interactions are a result of reciprocity/interactional synchrony or just happen randomly

❌ Observing a behaviour doesn’t tell us its importance in development
- eg Feldman suggests that ideas like synchrony + reciprocity are simply names that have been given to patterns observed in caregiver-infant interactions. They don’t tell us the purpose of these behaviours.
This means that it is not certain from observational research alone that reciprocity + synchrony are important for a child’s development

Counter: However, there is research to suggest that these early interactions are important for child development
- eg Isabella et al. found that high levels of international synchrony predicted the development of a good quality attachment