Poster #38 - Linguistic Predictors of Mindfulness in Attachment-Related Communication

• In Event: Poster Session 19

Abstract

The words people use to communicate can provide insight into their social and emotional worlds (Groom & Pennebaker, 2002). Indeed, how individuals express themselves can often be more informative than what they are expressing. Language use has been posed as a reliable individual difference and valid strategy by which to study personality (Pennebaker & King, 1999). Empirical research demonstrates that the linguistic markers contained within verbal and written communication can provide information about peoples’ identity, psychological states and traits, and relationships (Cassidy et al., 2012; Pickard et al., 2018).

Mindfulness is understood as non-judgmental, present moment awareness (Kabat-Zinn, 2003), with the capacity to be mindful associated with many positive psychological and physiological outcomes (Caldwell & Shaver, 2013). From a parenting perspective, mindfulness may allow a caregiver to be more open, responsive, and regulated in present moment interactions with their child (Duncan et al., 2009). Mindfulness in parenting is considered especially important because the development of mindfulness has roots in early caregiver-child relationships and socialization (Ryan et al., 2007), meaning caregivers who model mindful awareness during interactions with their child may, in turn, influence the development of such awareness within their child. An unanswered question in the area of mindfulness research is whether self-reported levels of mindfulness are related to more objective, external referents of mindfulness.

We investigated the relationship among mindfulness and language use within attachment-related spoken narratives. Our goal was to examine whether parents’ self-reported mindfulness was related to the words they use to describe their childhood experiences of being parented and in their interactions with their child. Sixty-three parent-infant dyads from Australia and New Zealand completed an online survey, the Adult Attachment Interview, and a free-play session with their infant.

Our data analysis plan consists of using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC-22, Boyd et al., 2022) program, a computerized word-count text analysis approach, to obtain linguistic information from the interview and play session. We used theory and existing research to guide our assumptions regarding linguistic predictors of mindfulness. We hypothesized that the LIWC categories of cognition, affect, perception, and time orientation would be most characteristic of mindfulness (see Table 1 for an overview of why each category was chosen). We plan to use Pearson correlation coefficients (and then linear regression analyses controlling for sociodemographic covaries) to examine associations between LIWC categories and self-reported mindfulness to answer two questions:
1. Can parents’ self-reported mindfulness be evidenced through related language use in the AAI and in their parent-child interactions?
2. Do parents use similar language to describe their childhood experiences and when interacting with their child? That is, do parents’ display a consistent affective style in verbal interactions with their children and when narrating their own attachment experiences?

A deeper understanding of the relationship between language use and mindfulness may: (1) provide novel and accessible approaches to promoting family psychological health across generations, and (2) extend knowledge on the measurement of mindfulness by providing information about whether language use could serve as an external, observational referent of mindfulness.

Authors

• Alixandra Risi, University of Wollongong
  Presenting Author

• Amy Bird, University of Auckland

• Judy A Pickard