Attachment: Caregiver-infant interactions Flashcards
What is reciprocity?
Responding to the action of another with a similar action.
The actions of one partner triggers a response from the other partner.
What is interactional synchrony?
When the mother and the infant connect in such a close way that they mirror each others actions and emotions
What is attachment?
It is an emotional bond between two people
It is a two way process which builds over time
Serves the function of protecting the infant
Reciprocity: What did Feldman and Eidelman state?
Babies have periodic ‘alert phases’ and that signals when they are ready for interaction.
Mothers typically respond to infant alertness around 2/3 of the time.
Reciprocity: Jaffe et al 1973?
From birth babies move in a rhythm when interacting with an adult like they are taking turns to speak.
Reciprocity: Brazelton 1979
Basic rhythm is an important precursor to late communications
regular infant signals allows for the anticipation of their behaviour
suggests babies have an active role.
When is an action reciprocal?
when each person responds to the other and elicits a response from them.
Interactional synchrony: what did Meltzoff and Moore find from their study?
Infants as young as 2 or 3 weeks old imitated specific facial and hand gestures.
Interactional synchrony: How did Meltzoff and Moore carry out their test and what did they find?
adult would display 1 of 3 distinctive facial expressions or gestures
Child’s response was filmed and observed by independent observers.
Found that there was an association between expression/action of adult and actions of the baby
Interactional synchrony: What did Meltzoff and Moore’s findings suggest?
The behaviours are innate and are not learned
Same study was done on babies as young as 3 days old, they produced similar actions
Real or Pseudo: What was Meltzoff and Moore’s proposal?
They said that the babies imitations were intentional
Real or pseudo: What was Jean Piaget’s belief?
true imitation only developed towards the end of the 1st year and anything before is a result of operant conditioning. (repeating a behaviour which is rewarded)
Give an example of Piaget’s thoughts
When a baby sees a caregiver stick out their tongue, they may do the same. This may make the caregiver smile which is rewarding. This encourages the infant to do it again. This means the infant was just doing a pseudo imitation as they had not translated what they saw into matching movemement.
Real or pseudo: what was Trevarthen’s study to support Meltzoff and Moore?
2 month old babies would interact with a video monitor with their mother in real time. The monitor would play a pre-recorded image which would not respond to the infant’s body languages. The results were of acute distress.
Real or pseudo: what did the findings of Trevarthan’s study mean?
Despite the efforts of the infant to gain their mother’s interest, they gained no response and so they turned away. This shows that they are actively eliciting a response rather than displaying a response that has been rewarded, showing that the infant has an active role. This supports the theory that such behaviours are innate and not learned.
