Mind‐mindedness versus mentalistic interpretations of behavior: Is mind‐mindedness a relational construct?

Larkin, Fionnuala; Schacht, Robin; Oostenbroek, Janine; Hayward, Emily; Fernyhough, Charles; Muñoz Centifanti, Luna C.; Meins, Elizabeth

doi:10.1002/imhj.21901

Mind‐mindedness versus mentalistic interpretations of behavior: Is mind‐mindedness a relational construct?

Larkin, Fionnuala; Schacht, Robin; Oostenbroek, Janine; Hayward, Emily; Fernyhough, Charles; Muñoz Centifanti, Luna C.; Meins, Elizabeth

Authors

Fionnuala Larkin

Robin Schacht

Janine Oostenbroek

Emily Hayward

Professor Charles Fernyhough c.p.fernyhough@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Luna C. Muñoz Centifanti

Elizabeth Meins

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.

Citation

Larkin, F., Schacht, R., Oostenbroek, J., Hayward, E., Fernyhough, C., Muñoz Centifanti, L. C., & Meins, E. (2021). Mind‐mindedness versus mentalistic interpretations of behavior: Is mind‐mindedness a relational construct?. Infant Mental Health Journal, 42(2), 176-187. https://doi.org/10.1002/imhj.21901

Journal Article Type	Article
Online Publication Date	Dec 16, 2020
Publication Date	2021-03
Deposit Date	Feb 8, 2021
Publicly Available Date	Dec 16, 2022
Journal	Infant Mental Health Journal
Print ISSN	0163-9641
Electronic ISSN	1097-0355
Publisher	Wiley
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	42
Issue	2
Pages	176-187
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1002/imhj.21901

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Copyright Statement
This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Larkin, Fionnuala, Schacht, Robin, Oostenbroek, Janine, Hayward, Emily, Fernyhough, Charles, Muñoz Centifanti, Luna C. & Meins, Elizabeth (2021). Mind‐mindedness versus mentalistic interpretations of behavior: Is mind‐mindedness a relational construct? Infant Mental Health Journal 42(2): 176-187, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1002/imhj.21901. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.