Department of Education, Psychology, Communication, University of Bari Aldo Moro.
Research Institute of Child Development and Education, Developmental Psychopathology Unit, University of Amsterdam.
Dev Psychol. 2022 Sep;58(9):1615-1628. doi: 10.1037/dev0001389. Epub 2022 Jun 23.
Mind-mindedness (MM) refers to caregivers' proclivity to treat a child as having an active and autonomous mental life. It has been shown to be a powerful predictor of many developmental outcomes and to mitigate the impact of risk conditions. However, longitudinal studies on MM reporting changes over time and individual differences among mothers have been scant and quite inconclusive, mainly due to the investigation of changes between only two time points. The current study analyzes MM's developmental trajectories across four time points (3, 6, 9, and 12 months of infants' age) along with the moderating effects of four variables (maternal sensitivity, age, education, and family income). The sample included healthy mother-infant dyads ( = 93, 46 female infants), belonging to monolingual Italian predominantly middle-class families, with 15% ( = 14) classified as low income (below the relative poverty threshold). The dyads were videotaped during semistructured play interactions and transcripts were coded for appropriate mind-related comments (AMRCs) and nonattuned mind-related comments (NAMRCs). Mothers' AMRCs, compared to NAMRCs, showed more temporal stability. Both AMRCs and NAMRCs showed a linear decrease with individual differences across dyads decreasing over time, and dyads becoming increasingly similar one with the other. Low income moderated the normative trend of appropriate mind-related comments. These findings suggest that MM, while depending largely on an individual trait at earlier ages, when infants' mental states are less intelligible, adapts to the increase of infants' sociocommunicative repertoire over time. They also highlight the importance of ecological constraints on the quality of caregiving. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
心智化（MM）是指照顾者倾向于将孩子视为具有积极和自主的心理生活。它已被证明是许多发展结果的有力预测因素，并减轻了风险条件的影响。然而，关于报告随时间变化和母亲之间个体差异的 MM 的纵向研究很少且相当不一致，主要是因为仅调查了两个时间点之间的变化。本研究分析了 MM 在四个时间点（婴儿年龄的 3、6、9 和 12 个月）的发展轨迹，以及四个变量（母亲敏感性、年龄、教育和家庭收入）的调节作用。样本包括健康的母婴对子（=93，46 名女婴），属于单语意大利中产阶级家庭，其中 15%（=14）被归类为低收入（低于相对贫困门槛）。在半结构化游戏互动期间对母婴对子进行录像，并对适当的心理相关评论（AMRC）和不适当的心理相关评论（NAMRC）进行转录编码。与 NAMRC 相比，母亲的 AMRC 表现出更高的时间稳定性。AMRC 和 NAMRC 都显示出线性下降，随着时间的推移，个体差异在对子之间逐渐减少，并且对子之间变得越来越相似。低收入调节了适当的心理相关评论的规范趋势。这些发现表明，虽然 MM 在很大程度上取决于个体在早期的特质，因为婴儿的心理状态不太容易理解，但它会随着婴儿社会交流能力的增长而适应时间的推移。它们还强调了生态限制对护理质量的重要性。（PsycInfo 数据库记录（c）2022 APA，保留所有权利）。
