Caregiver-Infant Interactions in Humans

• Precocial animals are born at a fairly advanced stage of development e.g horses are able to walk and run around soon after birth.
• Altricial animals, humans included, are born at a relatively early stage of development and so need to form attachment bonds with adults who'll protect and nurture them.
• Right from the moment of birth - and arguably before that - infants seeks a relationship with one or more people, often by making a lot of noise!  This usually concerns the child's very basic needs of food, warmth, security, biological functions, shelter and love.
• Bowlby identified various features of parent/infant interaction that seem to create attachment in the first few hours, days and weeks such as: crying, cuddling, smiling, babbling, natural body waste processes, reaching, touching and smelling.  He termed them social releasers and believed they were absolutely critical in the forming of an attachment.
• Parents are "genetically determined" to protect the child from the moment it's born - to touch and cuddle, soothe and calm.
• Biological aspect to help aid attachment in first hours and days, when babies are born and during breastfeeding, oxytocin and vasopressin are released.  Known as the "cuddle chemical", suggests the body naturally prepares the mother and baby for form a contact, which lends weight to Bowlby's theory that there is a special bond between mother and child.

• Breastfeeding makes the attachment literal and babies recieve these "happy hormones" as well as nourishment, smelling, touch, talking and cuddling all happen during feeding time all helping to nurture the attachment between the two.

• Even though infants cannot talk at this stage of development, communication between infant and caregiver is rich, complex and occurs in several ways: BIMCR

Bodily Contact: physical interactions between carer and infant help to form the attachment bond, especially in the period immediately after birth.

Interactional Synchrony: infants move their bodies in tune with the rhythm of carers' spoken language to create a kind of turn-taking, as seen with 2-way vocal conversations.  Reinforces attachment bond. RESEARCH: the fact that IS is not found in all cultures weakens support for the idea that it is necessary for attachment formation.  Le Vine et al. (1994) reported that Kenyan mothers have little physical contact or interactions with their infants, but such infants still have a high proportion of secure attachments. 

Mimicking: infants seem to have an innate ability to imitate carers' facial expressions, which suggests it's a biological device to aid the formation of attachments. RESEARCH:  Melzoff (1985) observered very young children copying behaviours of those immediately in their field of visions, such as stretching out fingers, sticking out tongue and smiling.  It is debated whether the child does in fact impose any meaning on these activities, or whether it is more of a trial and error reaction.  Social Learning Theory does tell us that we learn from those around us and given that gestures are signals that tell us what our body can do, and in a young child flexing will encourage the development of movement, it would seem that the child is genetically programmed to copy certain movement.  Bremner (1989) suggests that this is a way a child comes to know that it exists in relation to another person.  It is one of the intital stages of self-awareness and self-concept.

Caregiverese / Motherese: Term first coined by Snow & Ferguson (1977) adults who interactwith infants use a modified form of vocal labuage that is high pitched, song-like, slow and repetitive.  This aids communication between carer and infat and serves to strengthen the attachment bond.  RESEARCH:  it's been seen to be used by adults to ALL infants, not just those they have an attachment with, suggests that although usage aids communication between adults and infants it cannot be claimed to specifically form attachments.

Reciprocity: Lock (1980) says attachment grows through a reciprocal approach; that interactions result in mutual behaviour, with both parties being able to produce response from each other, which also helps to fortify the attachment.  He argues that each is genetically determined to encourage a relationship through a variety of measures.

Turn-Taking:  Parens allows the child time to respond to words or a gesture and they create a primitive form of conversation.  When Condor & Sander (1974) observed children on a frame-by-frame analysis  of body movements it was found that the children move with the rhythm of the conversation, described as a "dance".