caregiver-infant interactions

Question 1

what is attachment?

Answer 1

attachment is a strong, enduring, emotional and reciprocal bond between two people, especially an infant and caregiver

Question 2

what is reciprocity?

Answer 2

• when a caregiver and baby respond to each other’s signals and each elicits a response from the other
• eg. a caregiver might respond to his baby’s smile by saying something and then this in turn elicits a response from his baby

Question 3

what are alert phases?

Answer 3

it is when babies signal (eg. making eye contact) that they are ready for interaction

Question 4

what did feldman and eidelman (2007) show about alert phases?

Answer 4

that mothers typically pick up on and respond to their baby’s alertness around 2/3 of the time

Question 5

what did finegood et al. (2016) show about alert phases?

Answer 5

how often a mother picks up on and responds to their baby’s alertness varies according to the skill of the mother and external factors such as stress

Question 6

what did feldman (2007) find about reciprocity?

Answer 6

from around 3 months, reciprocity tends to become increasingly frequent and involves both mother and baby paying close attention to each other’s verbal signals and facial expressions

Question 7

what is active involvement?

Answer 7

the idea that babies as well as caregivers initiate interactions and they appear to take turns in doing so, despite the traditional views of childhood portraying babies in a passive role

Question 8

what did brazelton et al. (1975) say?

Answer 8

he described reciprocity as a ‘dance’ as it is like a couple’s dance where each partner responds to the other person’s moves

Question 9

what is interactional synchrony?

Answer 9

the idea that caregiver and baby reflect both the action and emotions of the other and do this in a co-ordinated way

Question 10

how did feldman (2007) describe interactional synchrony?

Answer 10

‘the temporal co-ordination of micro-level social behaviour’

Question 11

what did meltzoff and moore (1977) observe?

Answer 11

• interactional synchrony begins in babies as young as two weeks old
• babies’ expression and gestures were more likely to mirror those of the adults more than chance would predict

Question 12

what did isabella et al. (1989) find?

Answer 12

high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother-baby attachment

Question 13

how did isabella et al. conduct their research?

Answer 13

• they observed 30 mothers and babies together and assessed the degree of synchrony
• they also assessed the quality of mother-baby attachment

Question 14

evaluation: filmed observations

Answer 14

• caregiver-infant interactions are usually filmed in a laboratory
• using films means that observations can be recorded and analysed later, so it is unlikely that researchers will miss seeing key behaviours
• more than one observer can record data and establish inter-rater reliability of observations
• babies don’t know they are being observed, so their behaviour does not change in response to observation
• data collected in such research should have good reliability and validity

Question 15

evaluation: difficulty observing babies

Answer 15

• young babies lack co-ordination and much of their bodies are almost immobile
• movements being observed are just small hand movements or subtle changes in expression, so it is difficult to be sure of what the baby is doing
• it is also difficult to determine what is taking place from the baby’s perspective
  > we cannot know whether movements such as a hand twitch is random or triggered by something the caregiver has done
• we cannot be certain that the behaviours seen in caregiver-infant interactions have a special meaning

Question 16

evaluation: developmental importance

Answer 16

• simply observing a behaviour does not tell us its developmental importance
• ruth feldman (2012) points out that ideas like synchrony simply give names to patterns of observable caregiver and baby behaviours
  > they may not be particularly useful in understanding child development as it does not tell us the purpose of these behaviours
• we cannot be certain from observational research alone that reciprocity and synchrony are important for a child’s development

Question 17

evaluation: (counterpoint) early interactions are important

Answer 17

• there is evidence from other lines of research to suggest that early interactions are important
• isabella et al. (1989) found that achievement of interactional synchrony predicted the development of a good quality attachment
• on the whole, caregiver-infant interactions are probably important in development

Question 18

evaluation: practical applications in parenting skills training

Answer 18

rebecca crotwell et al. (2013 found that a 10-minute parent-child interaction therapy (PCIT) improved interactional synchrony in 20 low-income mothers and their pre-school children

Question 19

evaluation: socially sensitive

Answer 19

• it can be used to argue that when a mother returns to work soon after having a baby this may risk damaging their baby’s development
• therefore it is socially sensitive as it suggests that mothers who have no choice but to go to work will have a worse quality mother-baby attachment
• also prevents women from putting their careers first for the same reason