Caregiver-Infant Interactions (AO1 + AO3)

Question 1

What is Attachment?

Answer 1

a close 2-way bond between a child + a caregiver

Question 2

How long does attachment take to develop?

Answer 2

a few months

Question 3

What 3 behaviours is attachment shown through?

Answer 3

proximity - how close they are

separation distress - both upset when apart

secure-base behaviour - feel safe when together

Question 4

What are the 2 types of attachment?

Answer 4

reciprocity
interactional synchrony

Question 5

What is reciprocity?

Answer 5

a 2 way mutual communication between infants + caregivers

BOTH are active caregivers + can elicit a response from the other

(not necessarily identical responses, as in interactional synchrony)

Question 6

What is interactional synchrony?

Answer 6

when a mother + child’s actions/emotions mirrors the other in a synchronised way (at the same time)

they are synchronised bc they are moving in the same/similar pattern at the same time

Question 7

Who did supporting research of reciprocity?

Answer 7

Condon and Sander
Tronick’s still face experiment

Question 8

Who did supporting research for interactional synchrony?

Answer 8

Meltzoff and Moore

Question 9

What did Condon and Sander do?

Answer 9

analysed frame-by-frame video recordings of 16 infants (aged 12 hours - 2 weeks old) and their micro movements

Question 10

What did Condon and Sander find?

Answer 10

they found that the infants coordinated their actions in sequence with the adults’ speech to form a kind of turn-taking conversation

Question 11

What did Tronick’s still face experiment do?

Answer 11

he got a mother and baby to interact

then the mother stopped interacting (she had a still face)

Question 12

What did Tronick’s still face experiment find?

Answer 12

baby tried to get mother’s attention e.g. crying, making noise, moving

shows baby is an active contributor

Question 13

What did Meltzoff and Moore do?

Answer 13

they videotaped 12, 21-day-old babies as they watched an experimenter perform different facial expressions
e.g. tongue/lip protrusion, mouth opening

observers who were blind to the research aim later watched the videos and coded the babies own facial expressions

Question 14

What did Meltzoff and Moore find?

Answer 14

they found that the babies’ facial expressions matched the experimenter’s significantly more often than would happen by chance

Question 15

4 points of PEEL
(caregiver-infant interactions)

Answer 15

✓ support from Deyong et al
✕ problems when studying infants
✕ individual differences
PICL - reductionist

Question 16

support from deyong et al - EEL

Answer 16

D found infants only do interactional synchrony to humans not objects

shows infants display specific social responses to human interactions

practical applications = mothers + babies in same room after birth

Question 17

problems when studying infants - EEL

Answer 17

infants can’t talk so can’t ask why copying

other issues = sleeping + moving faces anyways

hard to distinguish behaviour = questions internal validity

Question 18

individual differences- EEL

Answer 18

Le Vine’s research found Kenyan mothers had little interaction but secure attachments

also, Isabella et al more strongly attached = more interactional synchrony - shows different infants respond in different ways

therefore mixed evidence of how important caregiver-infant interactions are in forming attachments

Question 19

PICL for caregiver-infant interactions

Answer 19

caregiver-infant interactions is reductionist as reduces attachment down to only being formed by interactions

a strength of reductionism is that it is scientific = makes it possible to conduct experiments in an objective + reliable way

However, it looks at a range of interactions e.g. reciprocity + interactional synchrony so a bit holistic

Therefore, reductionist bc reducing attachment down too only being formed by interactions BUT is slightly holistic