Carer-infant interactions Flashcards
Reciprocity def
‘A description of how two people interact. Caregiver-infant attraction is reciprocal in that both caregiver and the baby respond to each other’s signals and each elicits a response from the other’
Interactional synchrony - def
‘Caregiver and baby reflect both the actions and emotions of the other do this in a co-ordinated (synchronised) way’
What is an attachment?
‘A close two-way emotional bond between two individuals in which each individuals sees the other as essential for their own emotional security’
Three traits of attachment
- Proximity - staying physically close
- Separation distress - signs of anxiety when attachment figure leaves their presence
- Secure-base behaviour - even when we are independent from our attachment figure, we still make regular contact with them. Babies do this by returning to their parents on a regular basis when they are playing
Reciprocity explanation
From birth, babies and their mothers (or other caregivers) spend a lot of time together forming intense and highly pleasurable interactions
An interaction is said to show reciprocity when each person responds to the other and receives a response back from them
E.g. a baby smiles at its mother and the mother says something in turn elicits a response from the baby. This is called ‘turn-taking’
Reciprocity - Alert phrases
Babies have periodic ‘alert phrases’ when they use eye contact (a signal) that they are ready for interaction
Feldman and Eidelman (2007) found that mothers typically pick-up and respond to this alternes around 2/3 of the time
Finegood et al. (2016) found that this varied depending upon the mothers skill and external factors such as stress
From around 3 months this interaction becomes increasingly frequent and involves both mother and baby paying close attention to each other’s verbal signs and facial expression
Reciprocity - active involvement
Traditional view - babies are seen in a passive role, receiving care from adults
However, babies and caregivers take on an active role
Both can initiate interactions and appear to take turns in doing it
Brazelton et al (1975) described this interaction as a ‘dance’ - partner responds to the others moves
Interactional synchrony explanation
People are said to be synchronised when they carry out the same action simultaneously
Feldman (2007) stated that interactional synchrony can be defined as ‘the temporal co-ordination of micro-level social behaviour’
When are care giver and baby interact in such a way that their actions and emotions mirror each other
Interactional synchrony - synchrony begins
Meltzoff and Moore (1977):
They observed the beginnings of interactional synchrony in babies as young as 2 weeks old
An adult displayed 1 of 3 facial expression and 1 of 3 distinctive gestures
The baby’s responses were filmed and labelled by an independent observer
Babies expressions and gestures were more likely to mirror those of adults
Interactional synchrony - important for attachment
Interactional synchrony is important for the development of caregiver - infant attachment
Russell Isabella et al (1989) observed 30 mothers and babies together and assessed the degree of synchrony
The researchers also assess the quality of mother-baby attachment
The found that higher levels of synchrony were associated with better mother-baby attachment (the emotional intensity of the relationship)
Strength of filmed observations
- Caregiver-infant interactions are usually filmed in a lab, meaning that the experiment can be controlled - there are no distractions
- Observations can be filmed and analysed later
- By doing this researcher will not miss seeing any key behaviour
- Filming interactions also means that more than one observer can record data establishing the inter-rate reliability of observations
- The babies don’t know they are being observed so their behaviour won’t change
Therefore the data should have a good reliability and validity
Limitation of observing babies
- Hard to interpret a baby’s behaviour
- Small babies lack co-ordination and much of their bodies are immobile
- The movements being observed are small and changes in expressions can be subtle
- Observers can’t be sure that what they’re observing is random or triggered by something the caregiver has done
-Therefore we cannot be sure that certain behaviour seen in caregiver-infant interactions have a special meaning
Limitation of importance
- Limitation - does not tell us it’s developmental importance
- Feldman (2012) states that ideas like synchrony (and implication reciprocity) are purely gives names to patterns of observable caregiver and baby behaviours
- They can be reliable observed but that they may not be particularly useful in understanding child development as it does not tell us the purpose of those behaviours
-Therefore we cannot be certain from observational research alone that reciprocity and synchrony are important for a child’s development
Counterpoint to limitation of importance
There is evidence from other lines of research to suggest that early interactions are important
Isabella et al. (1989) found that achievement of interactional synchrony predicted the development of a good quality attachment
This shows that caregiver-infant interaction is
Pratical vs ethics issues
- Research into caregiver -infant interactions have a practical application in parenting skills training
- Crotwell et al. (2013) found that a 10-minute Parent-child interaction therapy (PCIT) improved interactional synchrony in 20 low-income mothers and their pre-school children
-However, research into caregiver-infant interviews is socially sensitive because it can be used to argue that when a mother returns to work soon after having a baby this may risk damaging their baby’s development
