A description of how two people interact. Mother-infant interaction is reciprocal in that both infant and mother respond to each other's sigals and each elicits a response from the other
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Interactional synchrony
Mother and infant reflect both the actions and emotions of the other and do this in a co-ordinated way
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Feldman and Eidelman
Babies have periodic 'alert phases' and signal they are ready for interaction. Mothers usually pick up two-thirds of alertness
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Feldman
From around 3 months this interaction is increasingly frequent and involves close attention to each other's verbal signals and facial expressions
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Brazleton et al.
Described mother and child initiating ineractions and taking turns doing so as a 'dance'
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Parent-infant attachment
Schaffer and Emerson found around 7 months majority of children attached to mother first
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The role of the father
Grossman carried out a longitudinal study and found that attachment to fathers is less important, but fathers role is more play an stimulation
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Fathers as primary carers
Field - filmed 4 month old babies in face to face interaction with PCM, PCF and SCF and found that fathers as primary carers adopt attachment behaviour more typical of mothers
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Evaluation - hard to know what is happening when observing infants
Merely hand movements or changes in expression being observed - so cannot really know that behaviours seen have a special meaning
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Evaluation - controlled observations capture fine detail
Observations of interaction are generally well-controlled, with mother and infant being filmed - allowing later analysis. Good validity as babies don't know or care they are being observed
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Evaluation - observations don't tell us the purpose of synchrony and reciprocity
Feldman - synchrony and reciprocity describe behaviours that occur, but don't tell us their purpose. Evidence reciprocal interaction and synchrony are helpful in development of mother-infant attachment
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Evaluation - inconsistent findings on fathers
Different researchers are interested in different research questions - father as secondary atachment figure/primary attachment figure
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Evaluation - if fathers have a distinct role why aren't children without fathers different?
Grossman found fathers as SAF had important role. MacCallum and Golombok found children without fathers don't develop any differently
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Evaluation - why don't fathers generally become primary attachments?
Traditional gender roles - men don't feel they should act like women. Hormones like oestrogen could create higher levels of nurturing
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Evaluation - socially sensitive research: working mothers
Suggests children may be disadvantaged by mothers returning to work shortly after birth
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Other cards in this set
Card 2
Front
Mother and infant reflect both the actions and emotions of the other and do this in a co-ordinated way
Back
Interactional synchrony
Card 3
Front
Babies have periodic 'alert phases' and signal they are ready for interaction. Mothers usually pick up two-thirds of alertness
Back
Card 4
Front
From around 3 months this interaction is increasingly frequent and involves close attention to each other's verbal signals and facial expressions
Back
Card 5
Front
Described mother and child initiating ineractions and taking turns doing so as a 'dance'
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