parent care giver interactions

Question 1

what do caregiver interactions do ?

Answer 1

develop and maintain a communication and attachment between caregiver and infants
crucial for infants future development

Question 2

define attachment

Answer 2

a long enduring emotionally meaningful tie to a particular individuals
(Shaffer 1996)

Question 3

define reciprocity

Answer 3

• ‘turn taking interaction’
• infants send out alert phases through their facial and vocal expressions which the care giver then picks up in and responds
  interaction flows both ways

Question 4

define interactional synchrony

Answer 4

• interactions and emotions between caregiver and infant ‘mirror’ each other
• parent and infants act as if they are one person
• actions and emotions are coordinated and simultaneous

Question 5

Meltzoff and Moore 1977

Answer 5

• aim: to investigate interactional sychrony
• procceedure: controlled observation where a researcher sat infront of 12-21 day old infants producingfacia expressions. behaviours were recorded and played to independent observers who recored behaviours they observed
• findings: infants immitated the adults facial expressions and hand movements. they later found the same synchrony with infants only 3 days old

Question 6

Evaluation: strength
supporting evidence

Answer 6

• I: there is suppporting evidence for caregiver infant interactions
• E: still face experiments
• C: this shows that babies expect and anticipate responses to their smiles

Question 7

Evaluation: weakness
cultures

Answer 7

• I: interactional synchrony and reciprocracy do not occur in all cultures
• E: kenyan mothers typically have little physical contact or interactions with their infants, but still form an attatchment. therefore infant caregiver interactions may not be a necessary feature in order to form attatchments in other cultures
• C: this means that these feautres may not be genralised to western cultures

Le vine et all 1994

Question 8

Evaluation: weakness
reliability

Answer 8

• I: there are differences in reliability testing infants behaviour
• E: infants mouths are constantly moving and the reactiond that are being tested (yawning, tounge protusion) occur frequently even without interactions taking place
  C: this means it is difficult to distinguish between genral activity and specific mirrored behaviours ( yawnings naturally occurs )