A Level Psychology AQA - Caregiver-infant interactions AO1
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- Created on: 24-02-21 11:28
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- Caregiver-infant responses - AO1
- Reciprocity and interactional synchrony
- Reciprocity
- Research in the 1970s demostrated that infants coordinated their actions with caregivers in a kind of conversation
- From birth, babies move in a rhythm when interacting with an adult almost as if they were taking turns, as people do when having a conversation - one person leans formward and speaks and then it is the opther person's turn.
- Brazelton (1979) suggested that this basic rhythm is an important precursor to later communications
- The regularity of an infant's signals allows a caregiver to anticipate the infant's behaviour and respond appropriately. This sensitity to infant behaviour lays the foundation for later attachment between caregiver and infant
- Interactional synchrony
- When 2 people interact they tend to mirror what the other is doing in terms of their facial and body movements. This includes imitating emotions as well as behaviours.
- Reciprocity
- Meltzoff and Moore (1977)
- Conducted the 1st systematic study of interactional synchrony and found that infants as young as 2 or 3 weeks old imitated specific facial and hand gestures
- The study was conducted using an adult model who displayed to prevent 1 of 3 facial expressions or hand movements where fingers moved in a sequence.
- A dummy was placed in the infants mout during the initial display to prevent any response.
- Following this display, the dummy was removed and the child's expression was filmed on video. They found that ithere was an association between the infant behaviour and that of the adult model
- In a later study (1983), they demonstrated the same synchrony with infants only 3 days old. The fact that infants as young as this were displaying the behaviour would appear to rule out the possibllity that the imitation behaviours are learned (meaning they're innate)
- Real or psuedo Imitation?
- Meltzoff and Moore proposed that this imitation is intentional.
- By contrast, the renowned psychologist Jean Pdget (1962) believed that true imitation only developed towards the end of the first year and anything before this was a kind of "response training" - what the infant is doing is repeating a behvaiour that was rewarded (the result of operant conditioning)
- Example - an infant might happen to stick its tongue out after seeing a cargiver do this. The consequence would be that the caregiver smiles, which is experienced as rewarding, encouraging the infantto repeat the same behaviour next time
- Thus, in Pidget's view,what the infant would be doing was just psuedo-imitation; the infant had not consciously translated what they see into a matching movement
- By contrast, the renowned psychologist Jean Pdget (1962) believed that true imitation only developed towards the end of the first year and anything before this was a kind of "response training" - what the infant is doing is repeating a behvaiour that was rewarded (the result of operant conditioning)
- Thus, in Pidget's view,what the infant would be doing was just psuedo-imitation; the infant had not consciously translated what they see into a matching movement
- To support this - Murray and Trevarthen (1985) studied 2 month old infants, which first interacted via a video monitor with their mother in real time.
- In the next part of the study the video monitor played a tape of the mother so that the image on the screen was not responding to the infant's facial and bodily gestures.
- RESULTS - acute distress. The infants tried to attract their interest but, gaining no response rather than displaying a response that has been rewarded
- This showed that the infant is actively eliciting a response rather than displaying a response has been rewarded
- Again, showing that the infant is an active and intentional partner of the mother-infant interaction
- Meltzoff and Moore proposed that this imitation is intentional.
- OBSERVATIONAL RESEARCH
- Was a controlled observation. They selected 4 stimuli and observed the behaviour of infants in response
- To record observations, an observer watched videotapes of behaviours in realt time, slow motion and frame by frame if necessary
- Video was then judged by indepented observers who had no knowledge of what the infant had just seen and had to make notes on movements
- Each observer had to note all instances of infant tongue protrusions and head movements using these behavioural categories
- Mouth protrusions = abrupt drop across the entire extent of lips
- Termination of mouth opening
- Tongue protrusion
- Termination of tongue protrusion
- Reciprocity and interactional synchrony
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