Infant interactions Flashcards
What is reciprocity?
When babies respond to their parents’ behaviour and start to match their actions.
What is meant by interactional synchrony?
When infants and mother’s actions and emotions mirror each other.
What is attachment?
A close, two way bond, where individuals see the other as essential for their own emotional security.
What did Melzoff and Moore do?
1977, they observed the beginnings of interactional synchrony in infants as young as two weeks old.
They used independent observers and found that babies could imitate both facial and manual gestures of an adult.
Name one weakness of Melzoff and Moore’s research.
It’s difficult to rely on infant behaviour because they’re constantly moving and its difficult to distinguish between general and specific imitated behaviour.
Describe one strength of Mezoff and Moore’s research.
They filmed the infants behaviour and asked a individual observer to judge the infants behaviour from the video. The person judging had no idea what behaviour was being imitated which increase the internal validity.
