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Mental States Task (MST): Development, Validation, and Correlates of a Self‐Report Measure of Mentalization
Author(s) -
BeaulieuPelletier Genevieve,
Bouchard MarcAndré,
Philippe Frederick L.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
journal of clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.124
H-Index - 119
eISSN - 1097-4679
pISSN - 0021-9762
DOI - 10.1002/jclp.21942
Subject(s) - mentalization , psychology , empathy , sample (material) , task (project management) , mental health , clinical psychology , set (abstract data type) , developmental psychology , social psychology , psychotherapist , chemistry , management , chromatography , computer science , economics , programming language
Objectives Mental states refer to the quality of one's capacity to mentally elaborate and open up to his or her subjective experience. The Mental States Task (MST) was developed to evaluate individual differences relative to this capacity. Method Using the MST, participants described a story from an emotionally challenging image and responded to a set of items about their cognitive and emotional processes while completing the task. The validation of the French version of the MST comprises two samples: 264 undergraduate/graduate students with a mean age of 27.27 years (Sample 1), and 206 students with a mean age of 26.61 years (Sample 2). The validation of the English version of the MST also includes two samples: 110 undergraduate students with a mean age of 20.15 years (Sample 3) and 188 students with a mean age of 20.90 years (Sample 4). Results Results suggest that 6 mental states can be distinguished and that the MST presents an adequate factorial structure, in both its French and English versions. The MST scores were associated with mental state scores derived from a content analysis method and with other related constructs (e.g., authenticity, empathy). Conclusions Overall, findings provide convincing evidence of validity and reliability for the MST as an assessment tool of mental states. This innovative measure is likely to facilitate the clinical and empirical investigation of mentalization.