Caregiver-infant interactions in humans

Question 1

What is attachment?

Answer 1

A close emotional relationship between 2 people, characterised by mutual affection and a desire to maintain proximity

Question 2

What is reciprocity?

Answer 2

• Happens from 3 months
• Interactions between caregiver and infant involving two-way/mutual responsiveness
• The behaviour of each party communicates signals which elicit responses in the other
• E.g. Mother smiles and the baby smiles back

Question 3

What is interactional synchrony?

Answer 3

• Happens from 2 weeks old
• Interactions between caregiver and infant are ‘synchronised’ so that their responses reflect each other.
• They respond in time to sustain communication.
• This can mean mirroring the action (e.g. infant moves their head in time with their mother), imitation or responding in a coordinated way (e.g. toddler talks and caregiver listens).

Question 4

What 4 key behaviours did Maccoby (1980) find?

Answer 4

4 KEY BEHAVIOURS TO SHOW ATTACHMENT:

• Seeking proximity by child and PAF
• Distress on separation (separation anxiety)
• Pleasure when reunited
• General orientation of behaviour towards PAF

Question 5

What is seeking proximity by child and PAF? Maccoby (1980)

Answer 5

The infant will try to stay close to the attachment figure (caregiver)

Question 6

What is distress on separation (separation anxiety)? Maccoby (1980)

Answer 6

Both the caregiver and infant will experience and demonstrate signs of distress when seperated

Question 7

What is pleasure when reunited? Maccoby (1980)

Answer 7

There will be obvious signs of pleasure from the child and caregiver upon being reunited

Question 8

What is general orientation of behaviour towards PAF? Maccoby (1980)

Answer 8

The infant and caregiver will direct attention to each other and try to engage each other in activities and interaction. For example they engage in mutual gazing.

Question 9

What did Tronick et al (1975) find?

Answer 9

Conducted the “Still face experiment” to test infant responses to an unresponsive caregiver

• The child and caregiver start by the parent reciprocally interacting with the infant but then stop interacting or responding by showing a ‘still face’ to the infant
• He found that after 3 minutes of attempted interaction with a non-responsive expressionless mother, infants rapidly grow wary
• The infant repeated attempts to get the interaction into its usual reciprocal pattern and when these attempts failed, the infants generally withdrew and turned their face and body away from their mother with a withdrawn, hopeless facial expression

Question 10

What did Meltzoff and Moore (1997) find?

Answer 10

Experimented using 6 babies ages 12-27 days old and 12 babies ages 16-21 days. The babies were shown facial gestures and manual gestures in order to investigate their abilities to imitate. The results indicated that babies aged 12-21 days old could imitate gestures, suggesting that this ability is present from birth and serves an important function in attachment to connect the caregiver and child