Caregiver-Infant Interactions

Caregiver-Infant Interactions

1. Reciprocity

   • Babies have periodic 'alert phases' and signal that they are ready for interaction
   • Mothers typically pick up on and respond to infant alertness around two thirds of the time
   • From three months interaction tends to become increasingly frequent and involves close attention to each other's verbal signals and facial expressions
   • An interaction is reciprocal when each person responds to the other and elicits a response from them
   • Both mother and child can initiate interactions and they appear to take turns in doing so

2. Interactional Synchrony

   • 'The temporal co-ordination of micro-level social behaviour'
   • Mother and infant interact in such a way that their actions and emotions mirror the other
   • Meltzoff and Moore (1977)
     • Observed the beginnings of interactional synchrony in infants as young as two weeks old
     • An adult displayed one of three facial expressions or one of three distinctive gestures
     • The child's response was filmed and identified by independent observers
     • An association was found between the expression/gesture and the actions of the babies
   • Important for the development of mother-infant attachment
   • Isabella et al. (1989
     • Observed 30 mothers and infants together and assessed the degree of synchrony
     • Researchers also assessed the quality of mother-infant attachment
     • High levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother-infant attachment

3. Evaluation

   • What is being observed is merely hand movements and changes in expression
     • It is extremely difficult to be certain what is taking place from the infant's perspective
     • We cannot know for certain that behaviours seen in mother-infant interaction have a special meaning
   • Generally well controlled procedures, with both mother and infant being filmed, often from multiple angles
     • Very fine details of behaviour can be recorded and analysed later
     • Babies don't know or care that they are being observed so their behaviour wont change
   • Feldman (2012)
     • Synchrony (and by implication, reciprocity) simply describe behaviours that occur at the same time
       • They can be reliably observed but it does not tell us their purpose
   • There is some evidence that reciprocal interaction and synchrony are helpful in the development of mother-infant attachment
     • Also helpful in stress responses, empathy, language and moral development