Maternal Mental State Talk Research Articles

Mothers' Mental State Talk and 3- to 5-Year-Old Children's Theory of Mind: Their Reciprocal Dynamic Impact.

The development of children's social function is influenced by the social environment, and children also play an active role in shaping and nurturing this environment. The present study investigated the potential reciprocal dynamic impact of mothers' mental state talk (MST) and the development of theory of mind (ToM) in children. Using a cross-sectional design, we explored the development of ToM in 3- to 5-year-old children using an unexpected location task, an unexpected content task, an appearance-reality task, and mothers' MST during mother-child reading. The results showed the following: (1) the mothers' MST exhibited a shift from a predilection for subjective terms (such as desires) to a preference for objective terms (such as cognitions) as their children matured; (2) the development of the children's ToM was closely related to their mothers' MST. The overall MST scores, as well as the different categories and referents used in MST, were closely associated with the children's ToM development. Notably, at the age of four, a critical period emerged where the correlation between maternal MST and ToM became significantly pronounced. These findings highlight the reciprocal nature of mother-child interactions as a two-way adaptive process.

Preconception interpersonal personality features predict postpartum maternal parenting behaviors.

Individual differences in personality traits affect the quality of social relationships. The parent-child relationship is among the most impactful social relationships in an individual's life, and positive parenting behaviors are known to support positive child development. The present study aimed to identify personality predictors-measured prior to conception at age 16-on later positive parenting behaviors. Young women (n = 207; 83.5% Black or multiracial; 86.9% receiving public assistance) who were followed since childhood as part of a prospective longitudinal study were observed interacting with their infants 4 months postpartum. We tested prospective associations between personality factors relevant to the quality and maintenance of social relationships-empathy, callousness, and rejection sensitivity-and coded dimensions of parenting behavior: maternal warmth, responsiveness, and mental state talk. We additionally examined potential moderating effects of infant affect on the relations between personality and parenting behavior. Results indicated that preconception empathy predicted later maternal warmth and responsivity, whereas preconception callousness was inversely associated with maternal warmth. The association between rejection sensitivity and maternal mental state talk was moderated by infant affect, consistent with a "goodness-of-fit" framework. The present study is the first to our knowledge to report associations between preconception personality and later parenting behaviors. The findings suggest that a woman's personality traits in adolescence, potentially years before she becomes a mother, can predict her behavior during interactions with her infant. Clinically, findings suggest the potential for interventions in adolescence to influence later parenting behavior and ultimately impact children's developmental outcomes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Belief it or not: How children construct a theory of mind

AbstractIn this article, I briefly review theories about the development of theory of mind, and then examine evidence for minimalism, the idea that infants initially understand only behaviors. To this end, I consider the need for a wide variety of species to predict the behaviors of other animals and that human infants are not unique in this regard. I also discuss evidence for infants' understanding of behaviors, including their good statistical learning skills and their rich exposure to patterns of behavior, which correlates with their acquisition of mental state vocabulary. Finally, I discuss evidence for how maternal mental state talk, as well as children's evolving language and understanding of self, contributes to learning that mental states underlie behaviors.

The relations between maternal mental state talk and preschoolers’ behavioral adaptation and school readiness: moderation by emotion situation knowledge

AbstractThis study investigated the extent to which associations between mothers' elaborated talk about mental states and preschoolers’ behavioral adaptation (i.e., social competence and internalizing and externalizing behavior) and school readiness were moderated by emotion situation knowledge. Families (N = 120) were mostly middle‐income and White and 70 of the preschoolers (M = 50.65 months, SD = 6.19) were boys. Results revealed a positive association between elaborated maternal mental state talk and social competence, but only for children average and high in emotion situation knowledge. For children low in emotion situation knowledge, there was a positive association between elaborated maternal mental state talk and internalizing behavior. There also was a negative relation between elaborated maternal mental state talk and school readiness for preschoolers low in emotion situation knowledge. Findings highlight the importance of considering emotion situation knowledge when examining associations between elaborated maternal mental state talk and young children’s social behavioral adaptation and readiness for school.

Maternal depression and children’s false belief understanding

AbstractChildren of depressed mothers show substantial social impairment, which increases their risk for developing depression. Theory of mind understanding forms the basis of social functioning, and is impaired in children of currently depressed mothers. Models of risk emphasize that a history of any maternal depression confers risk to later psychopathology. Therefore, we tested a novel model of the impact of lifetime maternal depression on children’s false belief understanding that accounts for three primary factors that scaffold this understanding: maternal mental state talk, and children’s executive functioning and language abilities. Children aged 41–48 months with a maternal lifetime history of major depressive disorder (MDD; n = 19) performed significantly more poorly on the false belief battery compared to those without (n = 44). Further, lower levels of mental state talk, child executive functioning, and child language ability were significantly associated with poorer false belief scores. However, the relation between maternal MDD and children’s false belief performance was not mediated by any of these factors. These results indicate that maternal depression predicts poorer false belief understanding independently of other crucial scaffolding variables, and may be a social cognitive mechanism underlying the intergenerational transmission of depression.

The Impact of Caregiving on the Association Between Infant Emotional Behavior and Resting State Neural Network Functional Topology.

The extent to which neural networks underlying emotional behavior in infancy serve as precursors of later behavioral and emotional problems is unclear. Even less is known about caregiving influences on these early brain-behavior relationships. To study brain-emotional behavior relationships in infants, we examined resting-state functional network metrics and infant emotional behavior in the context of early maternal caregiving. We assessed 46 3-month-old infants and their mothers from a community sample. Infants underwent functional MRI during sleep. Resting-state data were processed using graph theory techniques to examine specific nodal metrics as indicators of network functionality. Infant positive and negative emotional behaviors, and positive, negative and mental-state talk (MST) indices of maternal caregiving were coded independently from filmed interactions. Regression analyses tested associations among nodal metrics and infant emotionality, and the moderating effects of maternal behavior on these relationships. All results were FDR corrected at alpha = 0.05. While relationships between infant emotional behavior or maternal caregiving, and nodal metrics were weak, higher levels of maternal MST strengthened associations between infant positive emotionality and nodal metrics within prefrontal (p < 0.0001), and occipital (p < 0.0001) cortices more generally. Positive and negative aspects of maternal caregiving had little effect. Our findings suggest that maternal MST may play an important role in strengthening links between emotion regulation neural circuitry and early infant positive behavior. They also provide objective neural markers that could inform and monitor caregiving-based interventions designed to improve the health and well-being of vulnerable infants at-risk for behavioral and emotional problems.

Minding the children: A longitudinal study of mental state talk, theory of mind, and behavioural adjustment from the age of 3 to 10

AbstractMothers’ use of mental state talk (MST) is linked to young children’s performance on false belief tests of theory of mind (ToM) and to their behaviour in social contexts. However, little is known about MST beyond the early years. This investigation is the first to examine continuity in both mother and child MST from preschool (age 3–4 years) to middle childhood (age 10) and examines the role of early maternal MST in children’s later ToM and use of MST. We examine the novel association between MST and children’s behavioural adjustment from pre‐school into late childhood. Participants were mother–child dyads from a 7‐year longitudinal study. Measures of MST, ToM, and language were administered at home when children were 3 and 4 years old and again at the age of 10. Also at 10, behavioural adjustment was measured using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Mother and child MST were highly stable from preschool to later childhood. Early maternal MST accounted for unique variance in later child MST and behavioural adjustment at 10 years of age; children whose mothers used more MST, specifically references to cognitions, when they were 3 or 4 experienced fewer behavioural difficulties (externalising behaviour) when they were 10 years old.

Mothers’ Mental State Talk and Preschool Children’s Social-Behavioral Functioning: A Multidimensional Account

ABSTRACTThis study aimed to investigate the multidimensional nature of maternal mental state talk with respect to children’s social-behavioral functioning in a low-income urban preschool sample. Maternal speech data were collected as mothers narrated a wordless picture book depicting a diverse set of mental states to their children (n = 130, 2–4 year olds). Dimensions of maternal mental state talk (i.e., type, direction, causality) were examined with the Coding System for Mental State Talk in Narratives. Approximately half of the sample consisted of higher-risk children who were identified as in need of clinical services by on-site clinicians. Results indicated that mothers’ diversity and causality of mental state talk, their acknowledgement of characters’ negative emotions, and talk about children’s cognitions and their own mental states were associated with children’s socially adaptive behaviors. On the other hand, mothers’ tendency to focus on children’s perceptions during the story-telling task (e.g., “see that?,” “look!”) was linked with lower social competence and internalizing problems. Mothers in the clinical sample used a significantly lower proportion of emotion words compared to mothers in the nonclinical sample. Results suggest that a picture book reading task might provide a cost-effective method for assessing and possibly modifying maternal mental state talk.

Predicting adolescent postpartum caregiving from trajectories of depression and anxiety prior to childbirth: a 5-year prospective study.

Symptoms of depression and anxiety in pregnancy have been linked to later impaired caregiving. However, mood symptoms are often elevated in pregnancy and may reflect motherhood-specific concerns. In contrast, little is known about the effects of prepregnancy depression and anxiety on postpartum caregiving. Understanding these developmental risk factors is especially important when childbearing also occurs during adolescence. The sample comprised 188 adolescent mothers (ages 12-19years) who had participated in a longitudinal study since childhood. Mothers were observed in face-to-face interaction with the infant at 4months postpartum, and caregiving behaviors (sensitivity, hostile-intrusive behavior, and mental state talk) were coded independently. Data on self-reported depression and anxiety gathered in the 5years prior to childbirth were drawn from the large-scale longitudinal study. Parallel process latent growth curve models revealed unique effects of distal anxiety and slow decline in anxiety over time on lower levels of maternal mental state talk after accounting for the overlap with depression development. Depressive symptoms showed significant stability from distal measurement to the postpartum period, but only concurrent postpartum mood was associated with poorer quality of maternal speech. The results highlight specific targets for well-timed preventive interventions with vulnerable dyads.

Right Frontoinsular Cortex and Subcortical Activity to Infant Cry Is Associated with Maternal Mental State Talk.

The current study advances extant literature examining the neural underpinning of early parenting behavior. The findings highlight the special functional importance of the right frontoinsular cortex-thalamic-limbic network in a mother's proclivity to engage in mental state talk with her preverbal infant, a circumscribed aspect of maternal caregiving purported to be a prerequisite of sensitive and responsive caregiving. These associations existed specifically for maternal mentalizing behavior and were not evident for more generic aspects of caregiving in this urban sample of 76 postpartum mothers. Finally, the findings were robust even when controlling for potential demographic, perceptual, and contextual confounds, supporting the notion that these regions constitute an innate, specialized maternal mentalizing network.

Infant–mother attachment and children's friendship quality: Maternal mental-state talk as an intervening mechanism.

Utilizing data from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development's Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, we investigated mothers' talk about mental states during play with their 24-month-old children as a mechanism though which infant-mother attachment was associated with children's later friendship quality. A series of repeated measures analyses of covariance indicated that a secure versus avoidant or disorganized infant-mother attachment was associated with more maternal talk about cognitions (but not emotions or desires) at 24 months. Latent growth curve models tested within a structural equation modeling framework revealed indirect effects of infant-mother attachment on observed and mother-reported positive friendship interaction at 54 months and decreases in mother-reported negative friendship interaction from 54 months to 1st grade via maternal cognitive talk at 24 months.

Maternal mental state talk and infants' early gestural communication

Twenty-four infants were tested monthly for the production of imperative and declarative gestures between 0 ; 9 and 1 ; 3 and concurrent mother-infant free-play sessions were conducted at 0 ; 9, 1 ; 0 and 1 ; 3 (Carpenter, Nagell & Tomasello, 1998). Free-play transcripts were subsequently coded for maternal talk about mental states. Results revealed that the earlier infants produced imperative gestures, the more frequently their mothers made reference to the infants' own volitional states (want, try, need, etc.) at 1 ; 3. The same relation also emerged using maternal reports of their infants' gestural communication on a standard language development measure. These results indicate that mothers' talk about desires and intentions is linked to their infants' early developing communicative competence.

Stepping Stones to Others’ Minds: Maternal Talk Relates to Child Mental State Language and Emotion Understanding at 15, 24, and 33 Months

This continuation of a previous study (Taumoepeau & Ruffman, 2006) examined the longitudinal relation between maternal mental state talk to 15- and 24-month-olds and their later mental state language and emotion understanding (N= 74). The previous study found that maternal talk about the child's desires to 15-month-old children uniquely predicted children's mental state language and emotion task performance at 24 months. In the present study, at 24 months of age, mothers' reference to others' thoughts and knowledge was the most consistent predictor of children's later mental state language at 33 months. Vygotsky's zone of proximal development provides a framework within which maternal talk, first, about the child's desires and then about others' thoughts and knowledge scaffolds children's social understanding.