Summary
Summary Caregiver-infant interactions 16 marker
A 16 marker on caregiver-infant interactions | Based on the AQA A-Level Year 1 Text Book
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Attachment 16 markersCaregiver-infant interactions 16 marker
Babies and caregivers have intense and meaningful interactions, and the quality of these
interactions is associated with how successful their development of attachment is. The two main
kinds of interaction are reciprocity and interactional synchrony.
Reciprocity is when the baby and caregiver take turns carrying out interactions and responses. The
caregiver might respond to a baby smiling by saying something, and the baby then might laugh in
response. Mothers successfully respond to babies two-thirds of the time. From three months
onwards the interactions become more intense and reciprocal. Babies have active roles in starting
reciprocal interactions. Traditionally it was thought that only caregivers could cause a response from
their baby, however, studies have shown that babies can start reciprocal interactions, causing a
response from their caregiver.
Interaction synchrony is where the baby and caregiver carry out interactions simultaneously, where
they mirror each other's actions. Meltzoff and Moore found that babies can display interactional
synchrony from as young as two weeks old. A study showed this. Mothers displayed certain facial
expressions, and the babies' facial expressions would be filmed. The babies' expressions very
commonly copy their mothers'. Isabella et al. assessed 30 mothers and their babies to see how
synchronised they were, as well as measure the strength of attachment. They found that high levels
of synchrony caused better mother-baby attachments.
A strength is that the research was filmed. Often, mother-baby interactions are filmed from multiple
angles, meaning the researchers can go back and revisit them to check they haven't missed anything.
The babies aren't aware they are being observed, so their behaviour doesn't change, which tends to
be the biggest issue with observational research. This means that the studies tend to all have good
validity and reliability.
A limitation is that it's hard to understand what the babies' hand and facial signals mean and
whether they are displaying interactional synchrony. Babies are not very coordinated, so their
movements tend to be small. This means that it's hard to interpret the movements of babies
because researchers are unsure whether a hand movement was copying their mother or just a fluke.
This means that some particular interactions might not be meaningful between the caregiver and
the baby.
Another limitation is that there might not be a connection between interactions and the attachment
of mothers and babies. Feldmann said that reciprocity and interactional synchrony are just
interactions that happen at the same time, but they don't mean anything. It might be true that they
have been observed in babies, but they might not be useful or have a purpose. This means that we
can't be sure whether they are important in development.
However, a counterpoint is that Isabella et al. found that the more babies that showed reciprocity
and interactional synchrony, the stronger the attachment was, as she found in her study. This means
that there might be evidence that the interactions cause stronger attachments.
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