Larkin F, Schacht R, Oostenbroek J, Hayward E, Fernyhough C, Muñoz Centifanti LC, Meins E. Mind-mindedness versus mentalistic interpretations of behavior: Is mind-mindedness a relational construct?
Infant Ment Health J 2020;
42:176-187. [PMID:
33326150 DOI:
10.1002/imhj.21901]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/06/2022]
Abstract
Mind-mindedness is a measure of the tendency to represent significant others in internal state terms and is central to supportive parent-infant relationships. The two studies reported here explored whether mind-mindedness generalizes to representations of unknown individuals, using a novel task that assessed individual differences in adults' tendency to interpret others' behavior with reference to their internal states: the Unknown Mother-Infant Interaction Task (UMIIT). We compared UMIIT performance with measures of mind-mindedness from (a) adults' descriptions of close friends and partners (Study 1, N = 96) and (b) mothers' appropriate versus nonattuned comments on their infants' internal states (Study 2, N = 56). In line with the proposal that mind-mindedness is a relational construct, UMIIT performance was unrelated to mind-mindedness in both studies.
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