Caregiver-infant interactions

Caregiver-infant interactions

1. Reciprocity

   • infants coordinate actions with their caregiver
   • moves in rhythm with adult as if taking turns in convo

2. Interactional synchrony

   • when baby imitates the actions of another person, in terms of facial expressions & body movements
   • synchrony - at the same time
   • Meltzoff & Moore (1977)
     • first study of interactional synchrony - controlled observation
     • adult model displayed one of 3 facial expressions/hand gestures, baby watched with dummy in mouth to prevent response, dummy was removed and response filmed
     • results showed association between infant & adult behaviour
     • in 1983 repeated study found the same results on three day old infants, suggesting interactional synchrony is innate

3. Evaluation

   • testing of infants may be unreliable
     • infants mouths are constantly moving - sticking tongue out, yawning & smiling which could confuse researchers when measuring particular behaviour
     • Meltzoff & moore (1997) filmed behaviour & asked observers to judge behaviour from video
     • increases internal validity of their findings & suggests infants do mirror the actions of adults
   • failure to replicate findings
     • Koepke et al (1983) failed to replicate Meltzoff & Moore (1977) findings suggesting original research may be unreliable
     • Meltzoff & Moore countered criticism saying Koepke et al.'s research less carefully controlled
     • Findings into interactional synchrony are not certain and may not occur as originally outlined by Meltzoff & Moore (1977)
   • research investigating intentional behaviour supports examining infant behaviour
     • recent research shows infants do not respond to inanimate objects
     • Abravanel & DeYoung (1991) observed infants interacting with 2 objects, one stimulating tongue movement other mouth opening/closing
     • infants 5-12 weeks made little response to objects, suggesting infants do not imitate anything they see & only respond to specific social responses
   • Individual differences
     • e.g. Isabella et al (1989) more strongly attached infant caregiver pairs show greater interactional synchrony
     • shows children will respond to adults differently depending on the nature of the attachment
     • means that not all children will demonstrate interactional synchrony and that the results of previous research may be unreliable
   • research into interactional synchrony - application to later relationships
     • Meltzoff (2005) developed 'like me' hypothesis - explains how infants acquire understanding of what others are thinking & feeling
     • shows how interactional synchrony might help children understand internal mental states of others, fundamental in developing social relationships
     • shows importance of interactional synchrony research to understand adult social relationships