Continuity and stability of maternal mind-mindedness across different ages and contexts.

Objective of the study. Mind-mindedness refers to maternal proclivity to treat the infant as an individual having an independent mind (Meins, 1998) and is assessed by counting the number of attuned (and non-attuned) comments in which mothers refer to their infants’ desires, cognitions, and emotions during an observational assessment (interactional MM; Meins, et al., 2001). The present study aims to investigate the continuity and stability of MM across different ages and contexts. Specifically, the study evaluated the temporal and contextual stability and continuity of MM by assessing mothers’ production of attuned (AMRC) and non-attuned mind-related comments (NAMRC) in free play and mealtime contexts at two different ages (16 and 20 months). Method. Participants were 17 children (n = 9 females; M age = 16.00, SD = 0.32) and their mothers (M age = 36.46, SD = 2.15). No child had sensory, intellectual, or speech deficits. Interactional MM was measured in terms of AMRC and NAMRC (Cohen’s κ scores for AMRC and NAMRC ranged from 0.80 to 0.88). For the purposes of statistical analyses, the raw numbers of AMRC and NAMRC were transformed into percentages, by dividing them by the total number of utterances produced by mothers and multiplying by 100 (Meins et al., 2012, 2013). Results. A 2 (Age: 16 vs. 20 months) × 2 (Context: mealtime vs. play) completely repeated ANOVA found a significant main effect of Age [F(1, 16) = 31.77, p < 0.001, η p 2 = 0.66], indicating that mothers produced a lower amount of AMRC at 20 (M = 5.98%) than at 16 (M = 10.49%) months, and a significant two-way interaction [F(1, 16) = 5.76, p = 0.029, η p 2 = 0.27]. A follow-up analysis of simple effects indicated that the age-related decrease in the production of AMRC was significant in the play context [F(1, 16) = 39.13, p < 0.001, η p 2 = 0.71], but not in the mealtime context; in addition, the AMRC percentages were higher in the mealtime than in the play context at 20 months [F(1, 16) = 7.96, p = 0.012, η p 2 = 0.33], while no differences were observed at 16 months. For the production of NAMRC, the ANOVA showed a significant main effect of Context [F(1, 16) = 4.97, p = 0.040, η p 2 = 0.24], with the NAMRC percentages being higher in the play (M = 0.45%) than in the mealtime (M =0.00%) context. Regarding temporal and contextual stability, no significant associations were observed in the production of AMRC across different ages and contexts. For NAMRC, only temporal stability in the play context could be assessed, which was non-significant. Conclusion. The present study reached two conclusions: a) the production of AMRC decreases from 16 to 20 months; and b) MM appears to be temporally and contextually unstable. Taken together, our results converge in showing that MM should be regarded as a relational construct that varies according to several factors (e.g., contexts and ages).