Caregiver-infant interactions: Reciprocity + Interactional Synchrony Flashcards
When do social interactions typically begin between babies + caregivers and what are the two type of social interaction that can be shared?
They begin early, may begin as early as a few days after birth.
Two types
— reciprocity (the exchange)
— Interactional Synchrony (mirroring behaviour)
What is reciprocity in caregiver-infant interactions?
Provide an example.
The PAF and infant ‘take turns’ responding to each other, like a sort of conversation
E.g mum sticks out her tongue and the infant smiles and sticks out their tongue, then the mum smiles
What did Brazelton (1975) suggest about ‘turn taking’ in reciprocity?
Suggested that it is like a dance because each person has to respond to the other’s moves.
What two things does reciprocity influence and strengthen?
It helps to build more complex communications
It contributes to the development of attachment
When are infants more likely to require a social interaction and what may be an example of an indication to this?
When they enter an ‘alert phase,’ which is among the separate phases of potential behaviour displayed during the day.
E.g they could make eye contact with their PAF and show less interest in feeding
What did Feldman and Eidelman (2007) find about mothers and alert phases, and what are the three following up points?
They found that they are, on average, able to notice about 2/3 of a baby’s alert phases.
-more skilful mothers notice more
-these alert phases typically peak at around 3months of age.
-over time, babies and PAFS will pay increasing levels of attention to each other.
What is the main strength to reciprocity (+ IS) ? In regards to caregiver-infant interactions?
-researchers often film the behaviour so that it can be checked later; this allows researchers to run inter-rater reliability checks on the observers to ensure that that are recording the behaviours consistently.
This therefore makes the data often exceptionally reliable.
What is the main weakness to reciprocity (+ IS) in regards to caregiver-infant interactions?
(Provide the three examples)
It is hard to interpret a baby’s behaviour:
-they lack coordination and cannot do much apart from moving their arms/legs and change their facial expressions.
-hard to tell difference between baby smiling + passing wind
-impossible to know if a hand twitch is something responding to caregiver or a random movement the baby can’t control.
What is interactional synchrony?
This is the term used to describe how an infant and their PAF reflect or mirror the behaviour of the other in a synchronised/ coordinated way.
Provide three actions that PAFs and babies may mirror each other with
facial expressions, body movements, emotions
What does Feldman (2007) describe Interactional Synchrony as ?
’ A temporal co-ordination of micro-level social behaviour’, which is an essential part of caregiver-infant interactions.
What did the famous study involve that was conducted by Meltzoff and Moore (1977) and what three facial expressions were used?
They asked mothers to display different facial movements to their babies with some of them only being 2 weeks old.
Sticking tongue out, opening mouths + pouting lips.
What was the result from Meltzoff and Moore’s (1977) and how did they obtain this?
The responses were recorded on film and were assessed by independent observers, concluding that the babies were mirroring the mothers.
What did Isabella et al. (1989) observe and find out from this regarding IS?
They observed a group of 30 mothers and babies and assessed the degree of synchrony.
They found that elevated levels of synchrony were associated with stronger attachment between the mother + baby.
What did Meltzoff and Moore (1983) do in a follow-up study and what did they find?
They replicated the original study with younger infants (3 days old).
They found the same results and claimed that IS was innate, and could be seen in babies very soon after birth.
In support of Meltzoff and Moore, what did Condon + Sander (1974) analyse and find out?
They analysed frame-by-frame recordings of interactions and found that from the first day of life, babies coordinate their actions with their caregivers
What was the issue that Koepke (1983) proposed in response to Meltzoff and Moore’s theory?
They couldn’t replicate their study and concluded that 2 week old infants don’t show IS, and that the study only measured synchronisation occurring by chance.
