Caregiver Infant Interactions

Question 1

What is reciprocity?

Answer 1

Where each person in the interaction responds to the other and elicits a response from them.

Babies and mothers can initiate an interaction.

Question 2

What is international synchrony?

Answer 2

The temporal coordination of micro level social behaviour.

The actions of the infant and cater mirror each other.

Question 3

Supporting evidence for interactional synchrony

Answer 3

Meltzoff and Moore (1977)
- adults expressed one of three facial expressions and babies mirrored the expressions of adults.

Isabella et al (1989)
- observed level of interactional synchrony in mother baby relationships
- higher synchrony associated with better quality mother baby relationship.

Question 4

Evaluative points for caregiver-infant interactions

Answer 4

• strength - supporting evidence
• strength - high internal validity lab experiments
• strength - findings have a practical application
• limitation - difficult to interpret a baby’s behaviour due to lack of coordination

Question 5

Strength - supporting evidence

(Caregiver infant interactions)

Answer 5

Meltzoff and Moore (1977) provided supporting evidence for interactional synchrony in caregiver infant interactions. They found that when an adult displayed a certain expression or gesture the babies would do the same. Moreover, Isabella at al (1989) found that high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother-baby relationships which adds validity to the idea that interactional synchrony is important in the formation of a strong attachment between an infant and their primary caregiver.

Question 6

Strength - high internal validity lab experiments

(Caregiver infant interactions)

Answer 6

Research into infant caregiver interactions is often done in laboratories. This means that confounding variables that may distract the baby and cause a change in their behaviour can be controlled. They are also filmed so that researchers won’t miss key behaviours and so that more than one observer can analyse the interaction, therefore establishing inter-observer reliability. Moreover, babies don’t know they are being observed so their behaviour does not change, giving the findings of the research high internal validity and therefore increasing the validity of its predictions.

Question 7

Strength - real life application

(Caregiver infant interactions)

Answer 7

The findings also have a practical application as they can be used to advise mothers who are planning to return to work that it is not the frequency of their interactions with their child but the quality of those interactions that actually matter when it comes to forming a good quality attachment. The findings are therefore valuable in allowing parents to confidently return to work. This also has economic implications; both parents will be able to contribute to the household income, and mothers, who are more often primary caregivers, will be more motivated to go to work and this would in turn help in reducing the gender pay gap, a prominent issue in the workplace.

Question 8

Limitation - difficulty to interpret baby’s behaviour

(caregiver infant interactions)

Answer 8

However, it is difficult to interpret a baby’s behaviour because of their lack of coordination. The movements being observed are small hand movements or subtle changes in expression. For example, it is hard to distinguish between a baby moving their hand and due to a twitch or moving their hand in response to something the caregiver has done. Therefore we cannot know for certain of the behaviours being observed are intentional and have a special meaning or not.