Caregiver-Infant Interactions

Question 1

Why are caregiver infant interactions important?

Answer 1

They are needed for child development.

Question 2

What is an attachment?

Answer 2

A close, 2-way emotional bond between two people in which each person sees each other as important for their own emotional security.

Question 3

Name the 3 attachment behaviours.

Answer 3

Proximity
Separation distress
Secure base behaviours

Question 4

What is proxmity?

Answer 4

Physical closeness with the attachment figure.

Question 5

What is separation distress?

Answer 5

Showing signs of anxiety when the attachment figure leaves.

Question 6

What are secure base behaviours?
Give an example of how babies do this.

Answer 6

When independent of the attachment figure, we keep in close contact with them.
Babies do this by returning to the caregiver after playing/exploring.

Question 7

What is reciprocity?
Explain this in the sense of attachment between infant and carer.

Answer 7

A description of how two people interact. Caregiver-infant interactions are reciprocal in the sense that both care giver and infant respond to each other’s signals and elicit responses from each other.
It is seen as ‘turn taking’.

Question 8

Name 2 examples of reciprocity.

Answer 8

Alert phases
Active involvement

Question 9

Reciprocity is described as…

Answer 9

Turn taking.

Question 10

What are alert phases?
Give an example of how a baby may display this.

Answer 10

Alert phases are where the baby begins to signal that they are ready for a spell of interaction.
A baby might show this through eye contact.

Question 11

How old are infants when alert phases become more frequent?

Answer 11

After 3 months.

Question 12

Why does frequency of alert phases increase?

Answer 12

Caregiver and baby pay closer attention to each other and pick up on each others verbal/visual signals more frequently.

Question 13

How often do mothers pick up on alert phases?

Answer 13

2/3 of the time.

Question 14

What is active involvement?

Answer 14

Caregiver and infant both actively initiate interactions and take turns doing it.

Question 15

Name the researcher who described reciprocity like a ‘dance’.

Answer 15

Brazelton.

Question 16

What is interactional synchrony?

Answer 16

Caregiver and infants reflect both the interactions and emotions of each other like a mirror, in a coordinated way.

Question 17

Describe Meltzoff and Moore’s research into babies imitating adult models.

Answer 17

An adult model displayed a facial expression to the infant and placed a dummy into their mouth to prevent any response.
The dummy was then removed and the baby imitated the face.

Question 18

State the youngest age Meltzoff and Moore found were able to imitate a face.

Answer 18

Infants as young as 2 weeks were able to imitate an expression.

Question 19

What did Isabella find about interactional synchrony and mother-infant attachment strength?

Answer 19

Securely attached infants showed more interactional synchrony in the first year of life suggesting that more synchrony leads to stronger attachments.

Question 20

Describe the strength that caregiver infant interactions can be studied by filming them in a lab.
Explain how this allows for higher accuracy of observations.
Explain how this can lead to inter observer reliability.
Explain the benefit no risk of demand characteristics

Answer 20

This means that anything that could distract the baby can be controlled. Also, films mean that the observer can return and review what they saw later on, therefore it’s unlikely that observers will miss key behaviours. Furthermore, filmed observations mean that more than one observer can review data and inter observer reliability can be established. Finally, babies don’t know they’re being observed, therefore their behaviour won’t change as a result of the observation. This means that the data collected is reliable and has high validity

Question 21

Explain the limitation of of caregiver-interactions being hard to interpret.
Use the example of babies being immobile so movement may be random.

Answer 21

Young babies lack coordination and much of their bodies are almost immobile. The movements being observed are just small gestures or subtle changes in expression. It’s hard to be sure, for example, whether a baby is smiling and copying their caregiver or just moving their mouth, therefore it’s hard to understand what is happening from a baby’s perspective and we can’t be certain whether these interactions have a special meaning.

Question 22

Explain the limitation of caregiver infant interaction research being socially sensitive.
Use the example from Isabella, and how his research may be offensive to some.

Answer 22

For example, Isabella found that high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality attachments, which are more likely to occur within mothers and babies who spend lots of time together. However, this suggest that mothers shouldn’t return to work so soon, as they may be considered a ‘bad mother’ or alternatively, they may be made to feel guilty when returning to work. This means that the research may pose ethical issues.

Question 23

Explain the limitation of how observing caregiver interactions doesn’t tell us about developmental importance.
Use the example from Feldman who pointed out that synchrony simply just gives names to patterns of observable behaviours.

Answer 23

For example, Feldman pointed out that synchrony simply gives names to patterns of observable caregiver and baby behaviours. These are robust phenomena in the in the sense they can be reliably observed, but aren’t useful when explaining the purpose of behaviours. This means that we can’t be certain from observational research alone that reciprocity and synchrony are important for child development.