Attachment: Caregiver-Infant interactions.
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.
Mothers and babies spend a lot of intense and pleasurable time together interacting in the beginning of their lives. Mothers pick up the babies ‘alert phases’ in which they signal something saying they are ready to interact and therefore the mother can respond. From three months the interaction becomes frequent and involves close attention to verbal and facial expressions. Following this, another key element in reciprocity is when each person responds to each other and elicits a response from them. The baby takes an active role. Both mother and child initiate interactions and appear to take turns in doing so.
Interactional synchrony – Mother and infant reflect both the actions and emotions of the other and this in a co-ordinated (synchronised) way.
To people are said to be in synchrony when they carry out two actions simultaneously. Interactional synchrony can be described as ‘the temporal co-ordination of micro-level social behaviour’ (Feldman 2007). This takes place when the mother and infant interact in such a way that their actions and emotions mirror the other. Meltzoff and Moore (1977) observed beginning of interactional synchrony in infants as young as two weeks old. Adults display one of three faces or one of three distinctive gestures. The child’s response as filmed and identified by independent observers. Associations were found between or gesture the adult had displayed and the action of the baby. Interactional synchrony is important for development of mother-infant attachments and high level synchrony is associated with better quality mother-infant attachment.
Parent-infant attachment - Findings say that the majority of babies first gain attachments with their mothers as primary caregivers around 7 mothers and then within a few weeks or months they formed secondary attachments including the father. Signs of this would be things such as the babies protesting when the father walked away leading to a sign of attachment.
Evaluation of the caregiver-infant attachment - Almost every observation between mother-infant interaction shows the same patterns of interaction. Although, it is difficult to be certain, as what is being observed is merely hand movements or changes in expression. This then means we can’t really know for definite if behaviours seen in mother-infant interactions have special meanings behind them.
Observations of mother-infant interactions are usually done in controlled environments and filmed from multiple angles. Therefore, these can be recorded and analysed later on. Also the babies don't know or care that their behaviour is being recorded as they are unaware of the difference. This means their behaviour doesn't change according to these circumstances making the observation gain a lot more validity which is positive.
Lastly, observations don't tell us the purpose of synchrony and reciprocity. Feldman (2012) pointed out synchrony and reciprocity describe the behaviours that occur at the same time. They can be observed but it might not be useful as it doesn’t tell us their purpose. Although, there is some evidence that reciprocal interaction and synchrony are helpful in the development of mother-infant attachment, as well as helpful in stress responses, empathy, language and moral development.
