Caregiver- Infant Interactions

Precocial animals are born at a fairly advanced stage of development.

For example, horses are able to walk and run around very soon after birth.

However, humans are altricial which means that we are born at a relatively early stage of development and we therefore need to form attachment bonds with adults who will protect and nurture us.

From an early age, babies have meaningful social interactions with their carers.

It is believed that these interactions have important functions for the child's social development, in particular for the development of caregiver-infant attachment.

From birth, babies and mothers (or other carers) spend a lot of time in intense and pleasurable interaction.

Babies have periodic 'alert phases' and signal that they are ready for interaction.

From around 3 months, this interaction tends to be fairly frequent and involves close attention to each others verbal signals and facial expressions.

A key element of this interaction is reciprocity.

An interaction is reciprocal when each person responds to the other and elicits a response from them.

Two people are said to be 'synchronised' when they carry out the same action simultaneously.

It takes place when a mother and infant interact in such a way that their actions and emotions mirror the other.

It is believed that interactional synchrony is important for the development of mother-infant attachment.

In interactional synchrony, the carer and the infant tend to mirror what the other is doing in terms of their facial and body movements.

Whereas in reciprocity, one person responds to the action of the other person with a similar action but these responses are not necessairly similar like they are in interactional synchrony.

STRENGTH

The research uses well-controlled procedures as the mother-infant interactions are usually filmed, often from multiple different angles.

Very fine details of behaviour can be recorded and analysed later.

In addition, babies do not knwo they are being observed, so their behaviour does not change in response to observation.

This is a strength of this line of research because it means the studies have good validity.

LIMITATION

It is hard to know what is happening when observing infants.

Many studies into mother-infant interactions have shown the same patterns of behaviour.

However, what is being observed is merely hand movements or changes in facial expression.

It is difficult to be sure, based on these observations, what is taking place from the infant's perspective.

For example, is the infant's imitation of the adult's signal conscious and deliberate?

This means that we cannot be certain that behaviours seen in mother-infant interactions have a special meaning.

LIMITATION

The observations do not tell us the purpose of synchrony and reciprocity as Feldman (2012) points out that synchrony (and reciprocity) simply describe behaviours that occur at the same time.

These are robust phenomena in the sense that they can be reliably observed, but this may not be particularly useful as it does not tell us their purpose.

However, there is some evidence that reciprocity and synchrony are helpful in the development of mother-infant attachment, stress response, empathy, language and moral development.

LIMITATION

Research into mother-infant interactions is socially sensitive as it suggests that children may be disadvantaged by particular child-rearing practises.

Specifically, mothers who return to work shortly after a child is born which restricts the opportunities for achieving interactional synchrony.

This suggests that mother should not return to work so soon- this has obvious socially sensitive implications.

One of the important questions that attachment research has to answer concerns who the infant attaches to most or in general.

There are three main areas of study which are:

1) Parent-infant attachment

2) The role of the father

3) Fathers as primary caregivers

Traditionally we have thought in terms of mother-infant attachment.

Schaffer and Emerson (1964) found that the majority of babies did become attached to their mothers first (around 7 months) and within a few weeks or months formed secondary attachments to other family members, including the father.

In only 3% of case, the father was the first sole object of attachment.

In 27% of cases, the father was the joint first object of attachment with the mother.

In 75% of infants studied, an attachment was formed with the father by the age of 18 months.

Grossman (2002)carried out a longitudinal study looking at both parents' behaviour and its relationship with the quality of children's attachments into their teens.

Quality of infant attachment with mothers but not fathers was related to childrens attachments in adolescence, suggesting that father attachment was less important.

However, the quality of the fathers play with infants was related to the quality of adolesent attachments.

This suggests that fathers have a different role in attachment- one that is more to do with play and stimulation, and less to do with nurturing.

There is some evidence to suggest that when fathers do take on the role of being the main caregiver, they adopt behaviours more typical of mothers.

Field (1978) filmed 4-month old babies and found that primary caregiver fathers, like mothers, spent more time smiling, imitating and holding infants than secondary caregiver fathers.

The key to attachment is therefore the level of responsivemess not the gender of the parent.

STRENGTH

Mothers feel pressured to stay at home because of research that says mothers are vital for healthy emotional development.

In some families, this may not be economically the best solution- for them or our society in general.

This research may be of comfort to mothers who feel they have to make hard choices about not returning to work.

LIMITATION

The evidence undermines the idea of fathers having distinct roles.

Grossman (2002) found that fathers as secondary attachment figures had an important and distinct role in their children's development, involving play and stimulation.

Other studies found that children growing up in single or same sex parent families do not develop differently from those in two-parent families.

This suggests that the father's role as a secondary attachment figure is not important.

LIMITATION

Research fails to provide a clear answer about fathers and primary attachments as the answer could be related to traditional gender roles, in which women are expected to be more caring and nurturing than men.

Therefore, fathers simply do not feel they should act in a nurturing way.

Alternatively, it could be female hormones create a higher levels of nurturing and therefore women are biologically predisposed to be primary attachment figures rather than men.

LIMITATION

Social biases prevent objective observations as preconceptions about how fathers behave are created by common discussions about mothers' and fathers' parenting behaviour.

These stereotypes may cause unintentional observer bias whereby obsevers 'see' what they expect rather than recording reality.

As such, conclusions on the role of the father in attachment are hard to disentangle from social biases about their role.

Reciprocity- a description of how two people interact. Mother-infant interaction is reciprocal in that both infant and mother respond to each other's signals and each elicits a response from the other.

Interactional synchrony- mother and infant reflect both the actions and emotions of the other and do this in a coordinated/ synchronised way.