Caregiver-infant Interactions

Question 1

Attachment

Answer 1

A strong, enduring, emotional and reciprocal bond between an infant and caregiver

Question 2

Altricial

Answer 2

Born at relatively early stage of development. Bonds are formed with nurturing caregivers

Question 3

Reciprocity

Answer 3

Mutual interaction, responding to each others signals to elicit a response from eachother (turn-taking)

Question 4

Interactional synchrony

Answer 4

Infant responds in similar pattern/ same time as caregiver to sustain communication (mirroring)

Question 5

Meltzoff & Moore (1977)

Answer 5

Observed interactional synchrony in babies from two weeks old and later three days old (innate)

Question 6

Strengths of caregiver-infant interactions

Answer 6

• High internal validity (eg. Controlled observations filmed and analysed, babies unaware)
• Specific social response to humans (eg. DeYoung observed little response to inanimate objects)

Question 7

Limitations of caregiver-infant interactions

Answer 7

• Individual differences (eg. Isabella found more securely attached infants showed greater interactional synchrony)
• Contradictory evidence (eg. Piaget believed true imitation not innate but developed after 1 year as a result of conscious reward)