Caregiver - infant relationships Flashcards
What did research in the 1970s show about how infants interact with their caregivers?
Infants and their caregivers interact in a conversation (they take turns) which is an example of reciprocity.
What did Meltzoff and Moore (1977) want to investigate?
The aim of the study was to investigate interactional synchrony between infants and their caregivers and whether imitation is learnt or intentional.
What was the procedure of Meltzoff and Moore’s (1977) study?
The study was conducted using an adult model who displayed one of three facial expressions. A dummy was placed in the infants mouth to prevent any response. Following the sequence the dummy was removed and the child’s expression was recorded on video.
What is interactional synchrony?
When two people interact they tend to mirror what the other person is doing in terms of facial and body movements.
What were the finding of Meltzoff and Moore’s study (1977)?
They found that there was an association between the infant behaviour and that of the adult model.
What did a later study by Meltzoff and Moore (1983) show?
That infants as young as three as old demonstrated the same synchrony ruling out the possibility that imitation is learnt behaviour.
How did research conducted by Piaget (1962) contrast Meltzoff and Moore’s findings? (1977&1983)
She believed that true imitation only developed towards the end of the first year and anything before that was a form of response training and the infant was merely repeating a behaviour that was rewarded (form of operant conditioning).
Two limitations of Meltzoff and Moore’s study
Low reliability - Children’s mouths are in motion almost constantly making it difficult to distinguish between general activity and specific imitated behaviours.
Individual differences - Isabella (1989) found that more strongly attached infant - caregiver pairs showed greater interactional synchrony.
One strength of Meltzoff and Moore’s study?
Intentionality supported - Abravnel & DeYong (1989) observed infant behaviour when interacting with two objects and found that they made little response suggesting that infants don’t just imitate anything they see.
