A mind of one’s own. Exploring mentalized affectivity in adolescents

Introduction: Mentalized affectivity (MA) describes the ability to identify, regulate, and express emotions, combining the concepts of mentalization and affective regulation. It emphasizes the importance of reflecting on one’s emotional experiences and how they relate to one’s personal history. This construct appears relevant to understand the onset and maintenance of adolescent psychopathology, since this life phase is characterized by significant changes, many of them involving the surfacing of new, complex, and often intense emotions. This study aimed to validate the Brief-Mentalized Affectivity Scale (B-MAS) on a sample of Italian adolescents, testing the factorial structure of the instrument and investigating the relationships between MA and other dimensions of psychological functioning, including mentalization, alexithymia, epistemic trust, self-efficacy, psychological difficulties, and early traumatic experiences. Methods: The study was conducted through an online survey using widely validated self-report tools. Principal component analysis and confirmatory factor analysis regarding the B-MAS were conducted on a sample consisting of 566 adolescents aged 13–19 years (Study 1). A smaller percentage also completed questionnaires pertaining to other variables of psychological functioning (Study 2, n=288). Results: The original three-factor structure of the instrument was replicated, and all subscales showed good reliability and construct validity. Furthermore, good MA abilities were correlated with indices of adaptive functioning, while impairments in MA were associated with both internalizing and externalizing symptoms, as well as ruptures in epistemic trust. Discussion: The results of this study suggest that the B-MAS possesses excellent psychometric properties. Its brevity and ease of administration make it particularly suitable for use in the adolescent population, both in clinical and research settings.