Caregiver-Infant Interactions

Question 1

What is Attachment?

Answer 1

Attachment is an emotional tie or bond between two people, usually a primary caregiver and an infant. The relationship is reciprocal, meaning that it is two-way and endures over time.

Question 2

What is Reciprocity?

Answer 2

Reciprocity is when an infant responds to the actions of another person in a form of turn-taking. With reciprocity, the actions of one person (i.e. the primary caregiver) elicits a response from the other (i.e. the infant).

Question 3

What did Feldman (2007) suggest about Reciprocity?

Answer 3

From around 3 months old, reciprocity increases in frequency as the infant and caregiver pay increasing attention to each other’s verbal and facial communications. It is suggested that showing this sensitive responsiveness, whereby the caregiver pays attention sensitively towards the infant’s behaviour, will lay the strong foundations for an attachment to develop later between the caregiver and infant.

Question 4

What is Interactional Synchrony?

Answer 4

Interactional synchrony takes place when infants mirror the actions or emotions of another person. In this caregiver-infant interaction, the infant will move their body or carry out the same act as their caregiver simultaneously and the 2 are said to be in sync. This interaction serves to sustain communication between the 2 individuals.

Question 5

Key study: Meltzoff and Moore (1977) - Aim

Answer 5

To examine the interactional synchrony in infants.

Question 6

Key study: Meltzoff and Moore (1977) - Method

Answer 6

• using a controlled observation
• an adult model displayed 1 of 3 facial expressions or a hand gesture
• initially, the infant had a dummy placed in his/her mouth to prevent a facial response
• following the display from the adult model, the dummy was removed and the child’s expressions were filmed

Question 7

Key study: Meltzoff and Moore (1977) - Findings

Answer 7

• There was a clear association between the infant’s behaviour and that of the adult model.
• Later research by Meltzoff and Moore (1983) found the same findings in 3-day-old infants.

Question 8

Key study: Meltzoff and Moore (1977) - Conclusion

Answer 8

These findings suggest that interactional synchrony is innate and reduces the strength of any claim that imitative behaviour is learned.

Question 9

Caregiver-infant interactions - Strength

Answer 9

(Refer to key study by Meltzoff and Moore (1977))

Question 10

Caregiver-infant interactions - Weakness

Answer 10

point: one limitation of research into caregiver-infant interactions is the questionable reliability of testing children.

evidence: meltzoff and moore conducted a controlled observation on a sample of children to examine their interactional synchrony. the children were presented with either 1 of 3 facial expressions or a hand gesture from an adult model and following the display, their response was filmed. this is an issue for researchers investigating intentional behaviour as infants move their mouths and wave their arms constantly.

justification: therefore it is difficult to discern whether the infants are actually engaging in interactional synchrony as some of the behaviour may have occurred due to chance.

implication: this implies that findings are unreliable because intentionality of the caregiver-infant interaction produced by the infant is not completely guaranteed.

Question 11

Caregiver-infant interactions - Weakness

Answer 11

point: one weakness is the methodological issues present through the employment of observational methods when studying caregiver-infant interactions.

evidence: in meltzoff and moore’s study, a controlled observation was used which is an issue as there is the possibility of observer bias. this means that researchers may consciously or unconsciously interpret behaviour to support their findings. to address this, more than one observer should be present to examine the inter-observer reliability of the observations. furthermoere, research by koepke et al. failed to replicate the findings of meltzoff and moore’s study.

justification: this lack of research support indicates the flaws present with using observational methods to study behaviour and suggests that meltzoff and moore’s findings are unreliable.

implication: this implies that research into caregiver-infant interactions may lack internal validity as findings are not completely accurate due to the possibility of observer bias.

Question 12

Caregiver-infant interactions - Weakness

Answer 12

point: a weakness of research into caregiver-infant interactions is the presence of individual differences.

evidence: recent research by isabella et al found that the more securely attached the infant, the greater the level of interactional synchrony.

justification: this suggests that not all children engage in interactional synchrony and that Meltzoff and Moore’s original findings may have overlooked individual differences which could be a mediating factor.

implication: as a result, these individual differences have an impact on generalisability as other factors, such as attachment type, are overlooked.