Comparing Spontaneous Imitation in Grandmother-Infant and Mother-Infant Interaction: A Three Generation Familial Study

Abstract

The aim of this longitudinal and naturalistic study was to compare aspects of imitative exchanges in dyadic grandmother-infant and mother-infant interactions. Sixteen Cretan Greek infants were video-recorded in the course of spontaneous dyadic interactions with maternal grandmothers or with mothers at home from the 2nd to the 10th month of their life (N=48). The present study provides evidence that in interaction between grandmothers and infant grandchildren and between mothers and infants, there is similarity in the frequency, the structure, the direction of imitation, the kind of imitated acts, and the temporal patterns of the components of imitation. Infants' age was found to affect the developmental curve of grandmothers', but not mothers', imitative behavior. In the frame of the theory of innate intersubjectivity, we assume that similarity in these aspects of imitation may be related to invariant fundamental dimensions of Significant Other-infant communication ("kinematics" (temporal patterns), "physiognomics" (forms) and "energetics" (effort)). These similarities may have implications for both grandmothers' and infants' ability to regulate interpersonal challenges within an extended-family interactional context.