Research testing infants (Meltzoff and Moore)
Type: Criticism (reliability)
- Infants’ mouths are in constant motion and often stick their tongue out, yawn and smile.
- This may cause an issue for researchers investigating infant behaviour as we cannot tell if this is an imitated behaviour.
Info
Observers viewed the behaviours through a video and the observer had no idea what behaviour was being imitated leading to an increased interna validity as the observers would have not been biased – they were not looking for any behaviour.
Failure to replicate findings
Type: Criticism
Study: Koepke et al. (1983)
- Failed to replicate the findings of Meltzoff and Moore (1977), suggesting the original research may be unreliable.
- Shows the findings into interactional synchrony are not certain and infants may not mirror the behaviour and expressions of adults, as originally outlined by Meltzoff and Moore.
Individual differences
Type: Criticism
Study: Isabella et al. (1989)
- Found more strongly attached pairs of infants and caregivers showed a greater interactional synchrony.
- Shows children will respond to adults differently, depending on the nature of attachment.
- Suggests not all children will demonstrate interactional synchrony and that the results of previous research may be unreliable.
Application to later adult relationships
Type: Strength
Study: Meltzoff (2005)
- Meltzoff (2005) developed the ‘like me’ hypothesis – explains how infants develop an understanding of what other people are thinking and feeling,
- Shows how interactional synchrony might help children to understand the internal mental states of other people, which is fundamental in developing social relationships.
- Shows the importance of interactional synchrony research to understand adult social relationships.