Evaluating associations between parental mind-mindedness and children’s developmental capacities through meta-analysis

Abstract

Various lines of research suggest that parental mind-mindedness can facilitate children’s cognitive and social growth (e.g., executive functions and social cognition) in addition to improving parent-child relationships (i.e., attachments). The current research investigated the stability of the relationship between parental mind-mindedness and children’s developmental capacities by conducting a meta-analysis of 42 studies with 170 comparisons. Random effects analyses from the 170 comparisons revealed a modest positive mean effect size (r = 0.14), 95% CI [0.11, 0.16]. Next, the meta-analysis investigated three sets of potential moderators (sample characteristics, methodology, and publication factors) which led to 12 potential moderators in total. Of the 12, developmental capacity domain, children’s ages, mind-mindedness coding, mind-mindedness scoring, and research group were the five found to moderate the strength of the correlation. Parental mind-mindedness (coded for in regard to appropriate mind-related comments and/or mental attributes/comments) most strongly correlates with children’s executive functions, language abilities, and social cognition, and yields the strongest correlations when assessed during toddlerhood. Other analyses revealed that scoring parental mind-mindedness using the proportions of mind-minded utterances within speech is likely a conservative best practice, and that additional data from research groups is needed to ensure the stability of replications. We conclude with summaries of the literature’s quantitative findings currently and what that indicates about where subsequent investigations might focus.