Describe and evaluate research into caregiver infant interactions in humans.
(16 marks)
An attachment is a strong reciprocal emotional bond between an infant and a primary
caregiver. This is where the individual sees the other as essential for their own emotional
security. The 3 characteristics of an attachment is proximity, separation distress and secure
base behaviour. Care giver infant interactions is one of the key interactions between
caregivers and infants it involves nonverbal communication and such interactions may form
the basis of attachments between an infant and caregiver.
Reciprocity is a description of how two people interact, and one person respond to the
other. Mother and infant interaction is reciprocal in that both mother and infant respond to
each other signals and each elicits a response from another. From around 3 months,
reciprocal interactions tend to be increasingly frequent and it involves close attention to
each other’s verbal signal and facial expression (e.g smiling by the parent result in smiling by
the baby). Brazelton (1979) suggested reciprocal behaviour was an important precursor to
later communication. Signal the infant gives allows the car giver to anticipate the child’s
response and respond appropriately.
Psychologists have also described a different kind of interaction. This is when two people
interact (mother and infant) in such a way that their actions and emotions mirror the other
and they are said to be synchronised when they carry out the same action simultaneously.
Meltzoff and Moore conducted the first systematic study of interactional synchrony and
found that infant as young as 2 weeks old imitated specific facial and hand gestures. An
adult displayed 1 of 3 facial expression or 1 of 3 distinctive gestures and child’s response
was filmed. They found that there was an association between infant’s behaviour and that
of adult role model.
A strength of research into of mother-infant’s interactions is that they are done using well
controlled procedures. For example, both mother and infant interaction are usually filmed
from multiple angles and this allows for the capture of fine details of behaviour to be
recorded and then later analysed. Furthermore, babies are unaware that they are being
observed so their behaviour does not change in response to controlled observations which
is generally a problem for observational research, but this does not apply here as the babies
are young. Therefore, this is a strength as it means studies have good validity and are
measuring what it is intending to measure.
A strength of Meltzoff and Moore’s study comes from the replication of the study
conducted by the authors six years later. For example, Meltzoff and Moore (1983) replicated
their study with infants as young as 3 days old. They found that even infants these young
demonstrated the same synchrony suggesting that the behaviour is innate. This suggests
that the original findings were reliable, and that caregiver-infant interactions are innate
mechanism used to help develop an attachment bond. However, a limitation with Meltzoff
and Moore research is that other researchers have been unable to replicate findings.
Koepke et al attempted to replicate Meltzoff and Moore’s findings but failed to produce the
same results. Thus, this is a limitation because it questions the reliability of Meltzoff and
(16 marks)
An attachment is a strong reciprocal emotional bond between an infant and a primary
caregiver. This is where the individual sees the other as essential for their own emotional
security. The 3 characteristics of an attachment is proximity, separation distress and secure
base behaviour. Care giver infant interactions is one of the key interactions between
caregivers and infants it involves nonverbal communication and such interactions may form
the basis of attachments between an infant and caregiver.
Reciprocity is a description of how two people interact, and one person respond to the
other. Mother and infant interaction is reciprocal in that both mother and infant respond to
each other signals and each elicits a response from another. From around 3 months,
reciprocal interactions tend to be increasingly frequent and it involves close attention to
each other’s verbal signal and facial expression (e.g smiling by the parent result in smiling by
the baby). Brazelton (1979) suggested reciprocal behaviour was an important precursor to
later communication. Signal the infant gives allows the car giver to anticipate the child’s
response and respond appropriately.
Psychologists have also described a different kind of interaction. This is when two people
interact (mother and infant) in such a way that their actions and emotions mirror the other
and they are said to be synchronised when they carry out the same action simultaneously.
Meltzoff and Moore conducted the first systematic study of interactional synchrony and
found that infant as young as 2 weeks old imitated specific facial and hand gestures. An
adult displayed 1 of 3 facial expression or 1 of 3 distinctive gestures and child’s response
was filmed. They found that there was an association between infant’s behaviour and that
of adult role model.
A strength of research into of mother-infant’s interactions is that they are done using well
controlled procedures. For example, both mother and infant interaction are usually filmed
from multiple angles and this allows for the capture of fine details of behaviour to be
recorded and then later analysed. Furthermore, babies are unaware that they are being
observed so their behaviour does not change in response to controlled observations which
is generally a problem for observational research, but this does not apply here as the babies
are young. Therefore, this is a strength as it means studies have good validity and are
measuring what it is intending to measure.
A strength of Meltzoff and Moore’s study comes from the replication of the study
conducted by the authors six years later. For example, Meltzoff and Moore (1983) replicated
their study with infants as young as 3 days old. They found that even infants these young
demonstrated the same synchrony suggesting that the behaviour is innate. This suggests
that the original findings were reliable, and that caregiver-infant interactions are innate
mechanism used to help develop an attachment bond. However, a limitation with Meltzoff
and Moore research is that other researchers have been unable to replicate findings.
Koepke et al attempted to replicate Meltzoff and Moore’s findings but failed to produce the
same results. Thus, this is a limitation because it questions the reliability of Meltzoff and
