3-005 - Parental Mind-Mindedness in Diverse Populations

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Mind-mindedness, parents’ treatment of children as having independent feelings, thoughts, and desires, is reflected in their use of mental state language (MSL; e.g., emotions, cognitions, desires, attributes) to describe their children and in interaction with their children. Mind-mindedness is also evident in parents’ use of other complex speech (e.g., interpreting intentions and causation, linking events to the child’s life) with their children.

Four papers explore mind-mindedness in diverse socioeconomic and cultural contexts. The first paper examines the stability of mothers’ observed mind-related comments and mental descriptions of their children between 8 months and 44 months in a British sample. Mind-mindedness during infancy reduces the likelihood of children’s behavioral difficulties in low socioeconomic families. The second paper describes observed differences in the quality and types of MSL and complex speech on which parents and teachers focus during interactions with 12-month-old infants in Chile and in the United States. The third paper examines mothers’ and school-aged children’s use of MSL during a conflict resolution task in African American, European American and Hispanic/Latino families in the United States. Although mothers’ use of MSL is similar across ethnoracial groups, children’s use of MSL, mothers’ responses to children’s MSL, and relations between MSL and social and academic outcomes vary between groups. The fourth paper reports on mothers’ mental state descriptions during interactions with school-aged children as buffering the effects of maternal and child risk factors on children’s disruptive behavior in a British sample. The four papers shed light on parental mind-mindedness in diverse populations.

Sub Unit

• Race, Ethnicity, Culture, Context

Chair

• Holly Elisabeth Brophy-Herb, Michigan State University

Individual Presentations

• Longitudinal Stability in Mind-Mindedness and Relations with Behavioral Difficulties in a Socially Diverse Sample - Presenting Author: Elizabeth Meins, York University; Charles Fernyhough, University of Durham, Science Laboratori

• Cultural Differences in Mentalization: Quality and Types of Parents’ and Teachers’ Mental State Talk in Chile and the U.S. - Presenting Author: Chamarrita Farkas, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile; Claire D Vallotton, Michigan State University

• Variations in Mother and Child Use of Mental State Language and Outcomes in African American, European American and Latino Youth - Presenting Author: Holly Elisabeth Brophy-Herb, Michigan State University; Neda Senehi, Michigan State University; Claire D Vallotton, Michigan State University; Danielle Dalimonte-Merckling, Michigan State University; Deborah J Johnson, Michigan State University; Renee Cotroneo, Arizona State University; Erika London Bocknek, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

• Does Maternal Mind-Mindedness Buffer Pre-Teenage Children at Risk for Disruptive Behavior? - Presenting Author: Claire H Hughes, Univ of Cambridge; Sarah Foley, University of Cambridge