Caregiver- infant interactional synchrony Flashcards
what is reciporcity ?
Where an infant responds to the action of another person, or where the actions of one partner (e.g. the infant) elicits a response from the other (e.g. the mother).
what is Interactional Synchrony?
Where an infant mirrors the actions of another person; for example, an infant imitating behaviours and/or the emotions of their parents/carer.
who conducted research into IS?
Meltzoff and Moore (1977)
What was M+M aim?
Aim: To examine caregiver-infant interactions.
what was M+M method?
Method: An adult model would display one of three facial expressions or hand movements. The child’s response was filmed.
results of M+M?
association between infant behaviour and the adult model.
What type of research method did Meltzoff and Moore use?
Uncontrolled observation.
Evaluating Meltzoff and Moore (1977)
Limitation PEL RELIABILITY OF TESTING INFANTS.
P- issue with Meltzoff and Moore’s questionable reliability of testing infants.
E-Infants pull ‘funny faces’ difficult to distinguish between normal behaviour and imitation.
L-This matters because can’t conclude whether the results demonstrate caregiver-infant interactions or everyday infant behaviour, further research is required to test the reliability of these findings.
EVALUATION OF M+M strength of replication
P-One strength of Meltzoff and Moore comes from a replication of the study conducted by the authors six years later.
E-Meltzoff and Moore (1983) replicated their study with infants as young as three-days old. The found that even infants this young demonstrated the same synchrony, suggesting that the behaviour is innate.
L-This suggests that the original findings were reliable and that caregiver-infant interactions are an innate mechanism used to help develop an attachment bond.
lack of replicatability
Evalutation of IS M+M
LIMITATIONS failed to replicate PEEL
p-A limitation is that other studies have failed to replicate Meltzoff and Moore’s findings.
e-Kopeke et al (1983) attempted to replicate Meltzoff and Moore’s findings, but failed to do so, however, this was blamed on differing methodologies.
l-This shows that there is a lack of replicability and validity to M and M’s original study as later studies noted that the ambiguity in ow the infants responded to the adult was not measurable.
