Caregiver infant interactions - reciprocity and interactional synchrony

Question 1

define reciprocity

Answer 1

responding to the action of the another with similar - take turns

Question 2

define interactional synchrony

Answer 2

carrying out the same action simultaneously = mother and baby mirror each other

Question 3

Key study into interactional synchrony

Answer 3

Meltzoff and Moore

Question 4

Key study into interactional synchrony - Aim

Answer 4

to investigate reciprocity between infants and caregivers

Question 5

Key study into interactional synchrony - Procedure

Answer 5

• Controlled observations using 6 babies
• babies were exposed to 4 diff stimuli - facial gestures and manual gesture
• the babies were recorded
• An independent observer - noted all instances of tounge protrusion and head movements using diff behaviour categories

Question 6

Key study into interactional synchrony - Findings/conclusion

Answer 6

• babies aged 12 - 27 days old could imitate behaviour

- the ability to imitate serves as a building block for later social/cognitive development

Question 7

Strength - controlled observation - capture the details

Answer 7

evidence - both filmed - ensaures fine derails of behaviour are recorded and analysed/an independent observer - so the findings were not influenced by the knowledge from the researchers
explain - high internal validity

Question 8

limitations - 3 points

Answer 8

1. doubt internal validity - difficult to know the behaviour observed when testing infants is deliberate = accidental/coincidental = difficult to distinguish
2. Purpose of synchrony and reciprocity is unclear - Fieldman said synchrony simply decribes behaviours that happen at the same time = robust phenomena in the sense they can be reliably observed but its not useful as it doesn’t tell us their purpose
3. failure to replicate - Koepke et al failed to replicate their findings, but M and M sai it failed because it was less carefully controlled