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Mind‐mindedness versus mentalistic interpretations of behavior: Is mind‐mindedness a relational construct?
Author(s) -
Larkin Fionnuala,
Schacht Robin,
Oostenbroek Janine,
Hayward Emily,
Fernyhough Charles,
Muñoz Centifanti Luna C.,
Meins Elizabeth
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
infant mental health journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.693
H-Index - 75
eISSN - 1097-0355
pISSN - 0163-9641
DOI - 10.1002/imhj.21901
Subject(s) - construct (python library) , psychology , theory of mind , task (project management) , developmental psychology , cognitive psychology , social psychology , cognition , neuroscience , computer science , programming language , management , economics
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.