Caregiver Infant Interactions Flashcards
What is an attachment?
A close two-way emotional bond between 2 individuals
What are 2 ways to increase interact with a child to help develop an attachment with them?
Reciprocity
Interactional synchrony
What is reciprocity
-Turn taking
-Responding to a babys actions like a conversation
- both interact/ respond to each other
What is interaction synchrony?
-Infant and caregiver mirror each other’s action. Eg. Both laugh/react at the same time
What is evidence for interactional synchrony?
ISABELLA (1989)
- observed 30’mothers and infants and found that high levels of interactional synchrony were associated with BETTER quality mother-infant attachment.
What is an evaluation of caregiver infant interactions?
P- one strength of interactional synchrony and reciprocity is supporting research.
E- EVANS AND PORTER (2009) studied reciprocity, synchrony and attachment quality in 101 infants and their mothers for the first year after birth.
-Mothers and babies were invited into the lab on three occasions.
-At 12 months the quality of mother – infant attachment was assessed.
E- babies just to be those that had the most reciprocal interactions and the most synchrony, were the MOST ATTACHED to their mothers.
L-this suggests that caregiver interactions play a vital part in forming attachments.
What are A03 issues with studying babies?
– It is difficult to interpret a babies behaviour.
– it is difficult to know what is taking place from a baby’s perspective..
What is one weakness of caregiver infant interactions?
P – caregiver infant interactions are not found in other cultures.
– Levine ET AL found kenyan mothers have a little interaction/physical contact with their infants.
– The majority of the research into this area can be criticised for being ETHNOCENTRIC and ignoring how attachment may be formed within different cultures.
– This study provides support for the idea that caregiver infant commitment interactions aren’t necessary for attachment formation.
