INFANT INTERACTIONS

INFANT INTERACTIONS

1. Cultural variations

   • Individualist cultures: Cultures focus on independence and achieving the best for you. Encourage assertiveness emotional independence and privacy. E.g. Germany. Parents set boundaries and give freedom with in them and intervening when necessary. Leaves children less agreeable and more extravert.
   • Takahashi
     • Procedure: 60 middle-class, Japanese infants, aged 1 year, both boys & girls, and their mothers All were raised at home. The infants and mothers were observed in the Strange Situation
     • Findings: 68% were classified as securely attached. There were no infants classified as avoidant-insecure. 32% were classified as resistant- insecure. Japanese infants were much more disturbed the ‘infant alone’ step was stopped for 90% of the infants because they became so distressed. It is suggested that if the infant alone step had not been stopped a higher % of infants would have been classified as securely attached, possibly as high as 80%.
     • Cultural background
       • The lack of avoidant behaviour in the sample could be explained in cultural terms. Japanese children are taught that such behaviour is impolite and would be actively discouraged from displaying such behaviour.
         • Differences could be because Japanese infants experience much less separation and generally sleep in the same bed as their parents until the age of 2, are carried around on their mothers backs and often bathe with their parents.
           • The Strange Situation doesn’t mean the same thing for the Japanese. The Strange Situation was only intended to cause mild distress, but was much more stressful for the Japanese infants. This means that the behaviours observed were reactions to extreme stress, which wasn’t the original aim.
     • Evaluation: Ethics: The infants became very distressed at the left alone stage. 90%. Therefore other people want to take part.
   • Collectivist cultures: Focus on relationships with others and doing whats best for everyone. They encourage obedience, duty and family integrity. E.g. Japan. Parents promote values such as helpfulness and working together. Children grow up to be more agreeable and less extravert.
   • Grossman & Grossman
     • German infants tended to be classified as insecure-avoidant rather than securely attached.
     • Cultural background: This may be due to different child-rearing practices and German cultural norms, as parents and children generally keep a greater interpersonal distance and infants in the Strange Situation do not engage in proximity-seeking behaviours and therefore appear to be insecurely attached.
     • Therefore, in the strange situation German infants may appear to be avoidant. So its not a valid representation of their attachment type.
   • Van IZjendoorn and Kroonenburg
     • The ‘Strange Situation’ has been done in many countries, so they summarised 32 studies in a ‘meta-analysis’. They simply put the findings of all the studies in a table
       • Secure is most common. Japan 5% insecure avoidant, Germany 35% insecure avoidant. Germany was 8% insecure resistant and japan was 27%.Proves theres cultural differences.
     • Evaluation: Cross cultural analysis includes 32 studies: Allows comparisons to be made for attachment types.
     • Evaluation: Issues with generalisability: More studies in america compared to one study in china and GB. Not repeatable.

2. An enduring, two way (reciprocal), emotional bond to a specific other person, normally between a parent and a child.

3. Motherese/ caregiverese: the distinctive language patterns demonstrated by mothers conversing with young children. Its usually slow, high-pitched, repetitive, varied in intonation and comprises short simple sentences. One of the most distinctive characteristics of motherese is the ‘singy-songy’ nature of the communication.

4. Infants can’t talk, but communication between career and infant can happen in many different ways: Bodily contact, Mimicking, Interactional synchrony, Reciprocity and Caregiverese

5. Interactions between a carer and an infant serve an important function of developing and maintaining an attachment.

6. Attachment bonds are characterised by an infant’s desire to keep close proximity to a particular individual and an expression of distress when separated from that person.

7. Meltzoff and Moore

   • Controlled by observation. 4 stimulus were used (3 faces and a hand gesture). To record observations they watched videos of the infants behaviour in real time, slow-mo and frame by frame. The video was judged by independent observers who had no knowledge of what the infant had just seen. They used behavioural categories to record observations.
   • Evaluation: Failure to replicate: Others failed to replicate the findings, although M&M counter acted that the research was less carefully controlled.

8. Evaluation: Individual differences: An important feature of interactional synchrony is theres variation between infants. Isabella (1989) found that strongly attached infants- caregiver showed greater synchrony. Heinman (1989) found infants that show a lot of imitation from birth have been found to have a better quality relationship but its not clear if this is a direct link.

9. Evaluation: Is the behaviour intentional: Another study was done to see how infants respond to inanimate objects. Psychologists observed infants interacting with 2 objects, one stimulating tongue movement the other mouth opening and closing. Infants aged 5-12 weeks made little response. Concluded that infants dont imitate anything, its a specific social response to other humans.

Images and files in the map