Caregiver-infant interactions Flashcards
What is reciprocity?
Responding to the action of another with a similar action, where the actions of one elicit a response from another
Who researched into reciprocity?
Jaffe et al
What did Jaffe et al find?
Infants coordinate their actions with caregivers in a kind of conversation - from birth babies move in rhythm when interacting with an adult as if they were taking turns like a conversation
What did Brazelton suggest about the importance of reciprocity in infancy?
This basic rhythm is an important prosecutor to later communications. The regularity of an infants signals allows a caregiver to anticipate the infants behaviour + respond appropriately (lays the foundation for later attachments
What is interactional synchrony?
When two people tend to interact they tend to mirror what the other is doing in terms of facial and body movements. This includes imitating emotions + behaviours
Who conducted the first systematic study of interactional synchrony and what did they do/find?
Meltzoff and Moore - found infants as young as 2/3 weeks old imitated specific facial and hand gestures - study conducted using an adult model who displayed one of three facial expressions (dummy in infants mouth for first display to prevent any response) - once dummy removed they found an association between the adults behaviour and the infants
- They displayed the same thing in a later study with infants as young as 3 days old
What did Meltzoff and Moore propose about the imitation?
It is intentional
What did Piaget believe about imitation?
Imitation only develops towards the end of the first year and anything before this was a kind of response training e.g. smiling and laughing to encourage baby
Who provided support for Meltzoff and Moores views and how?
Murray and Trevarthen - study of two month olds - interacted via a video monitor with their mother in real time - next part of the study was a tape of mother (could not interact) - resulted in acute distress - demonstrates the infant is eliciting a response rather than displaying a response that has been rewarded
What problems are there with testing infant behaviour? How did Meltzoff and Moore try and overcome this?
Infants mouths are in fairly constant motion and the expressions that are tested occur frequently (tongue sticking out, yawning, smiling)
This makes it difficult to distinguish between general activity and specific imitated behaviours
Meltzoff and Moore measures infant responses by filming infants and then asking an observer (unaware of what behaviour was being imitated) to judge the infants behaviour form the video - way to increase internal validity
How did Abravanel and DeYoung show that infant imitation is specific to other humans?
Observed infant behaviour ‘interacting’ with 2 objects - 1 stimulating tongue movements and the other mouth opening/closing - infants (median age 5 and 12 weeks) made little response to the objects - suggests imitation is a specific social response to other humans
What is the value of research into imitative behaviours?
Forms the basis for social development
Meltzoff proposed a ‘like me’ hypothesis of infant development based on research into interactional synchrony
1st - the connection between what the infant sees and their imitation of this
2nd - infants associate their own acts/underlying mental states
3rd - infants project their own internal experiences onto others performing similar acts
As a result, infants begin to understand what other people are thinking and feeling - ‘Theory of the Mind’ - fundamental to conducting relationships
Therefore a strength of this research is that it explains how children begin to understand what others think and feel, and thus are able to conduct relationships
