Child factors may contribute to maternal mind-mindedness if this is best viewed as a relational construct. In this way, mothers’ mind-mindedness may not be independent of child characteristics. However, little evidence has been found supporting this link including a failure to find a relationship between maternal mind-mindedness and concurrent infant behaviour (Meins et al., 2001), and cognitive ability and IQ (Meins et al., 2001, 2002). Research has investigated the possibility that a mother’s mind- mindedness may be influenced by other child factors, specifically looking at
relations with child temperament. If an association between mind-mindedness and temperament was found, this would support the view that maternal mind-
mindedness is a relational construct influenced by aspects of the other person in the relationship, such as child temperament.
Relations between maternal mind-mindedness and infant temperament assessed by questionnaire have been investigated in a couple of studies (Demers et al., 2010b; Meins et al., 2011), and relations between parental mind-mindedness and
behavioural and emotional difficulties, again assessed by questionnaire, have been explored with preschool and primary school children (Meins, Munoz Centifanti, Fernyhough, & Fishburn, 2013; Walker et al., 2011). Meins et al. (2011) investigated relations between levels of maternal mind-mindedness and infant temperament in 40 mother-infant dyads from predominantly lower-middle class families.
Assessments took place when the infants were 7 months. Mind-mindedness was assessed using the interactional measure and mothers were asked to rate infant temperament using Rothbart’s Infant Behavior Questionnaire (IBQ; 1981). The IBQ provides scores on six temperament dimensions: Activity Level, Smiling and
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Meins and colleagues found no relationship between mothers’ scores for either appropriate or non-attuned mind-related comments and any of the temperament dimensions. Effect sizes for these non-significant correlations were also negligible or small, except for the medium effect size found in the negative correlation between mothers’ non-attuned mind-related comments and infant smiling and laughing (U = -.34). However, the temperament dimension of Smiling and Laughter suffered from the lowest internal reliability which may have impacted on this finding. In conclusion, the study provided no support for infant temperament being related to mothers’ tendency to appropriately interpret their infants’ thoughts or feelings, or to misinterpret their infants’ internal states.
Demers and colleagues (2010b) examined relations between the content of
mothers’ mind-mindedness and their infants’ temperament. A convenience sample took part, comprising 37 adult and 69 adolescent mothers. The authors predicted that a mother’s mind-mindedness would be positively associated with a perception of an easier child temperament. Mind-mindedness was assessed when infants were 18 months using an expanded representational measure which includes an
assessment of the emotional valence of mothers’ attributes about their child (positive, negative, and neutral attributes). Temperament was assessed twice by maternal report when infants were 6 months and 10 months. The Infant
Characteristics Questionnaire (ICQ; Bates, Freeland, & Lounsbury, 1979) was selected to measure temperament. This comprises four scales: Difficultness, Dullness, Unadaptability and Unpredictability. Higher scores are associated with mothers perceiving their infant as more difficult, dull, unadaptable, and/or
unpredictable. Aggregated scores for the two time points were included in analysis. The authors predicted that scores would correlate negatively with positive maternal mind-mindedness. Due to low levels of stability found for unpredictability and dullness, only scales relating to negative infant emotionality (difficultness and unadaptability) were examined in relation to maternal mind-mindedness.
Adult and adolescent mothers did not differ in their perceptions of the child as being difficult or unadaptable or in their use of positive and negative mental attributes in descriptions. Scores for the two groups of mothers were combined and positive maternal mind-mindedness was found to correlate negatively with mothers’ perceptions of the child as being difficult. Demers et al. (2010b) proposed that the longitudinal nature of the study, whilst acknowledging that no causal inference could be made, raised the possibility that perceptions of the child as relatively “easy”
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during the infant’s first months may contribute to more positive and more mind- minded representations of the child as the infant-mother relationship develops over the first 18 months of the child’s life. The authors argued that mothers’ perceptions of child characteristics seemed to be relevant to an understanding of maternal mind- mindedness and its emotional content.
The next two studies to be discussed focused on maternal report of child
behavioural and emotional difficulties as opposed to the previous two studies which focused on maternal report of child temperament characteristics. Walker et al. (2011) investigated relations between representational mind-mindedness and child behavioural and emotional difficulties in two groups of parents: a community sample of parents, and parents whose children had been referred to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). The primary caregiver was included in the study, and 47 mothers and two fathers took part with children between the ages of 3- to 5- years-old. The severity of children’s difficulties was measured using the SDQ. As previously described in Chapter 4, this measure gives scores for four scales looking at difficulties (Emotional Symptoms, Conduct Problems, Hyperactivity, Peer
Problems) which are summed to give a Total Difficulties score, and one scale looking at Prosocial Behaviour. It was predicted that parental mind-mindedness scores would be negatively correlated with children’s behavioural difficulties in both groups.
The authors found no relationship between parental mind-mindedness and children’s behavioural and emotional difficulties in the clinical group. A different story emerged from the community group. Here, a strong negative relationship was found between mind-mindedness and total difficulties (U = -.56). A closer look at the scales using Spearman’s rho correlations revealed a medium negative relationship between mind-mindedness and conduct problems (UV = -.41) and a strong negative
relationship between mind-mindedness and hyperactivity (UV= -.65). No relationships
were found between mind-mindedness and the scales in the clinical group. The clinical group had been found to rate their children’s difficulties as significantly higher than the community group. In explaining why mind-mindedness was only related to parental ratings of children’s behavioural and emotional difficulties in the community group and not in the clinical group, the authors argued that mind- mindedness may only be related to lower levels of child difficulties.
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The longitudinal nature of a study by Meins et al. (2013) enabled an investigation into whether early maternal mind-mindedness might protect children against developing problem behaviours. The focus of this study was different to those mentioned previously in that it was no longer investigating whether child factors influenced maternal mind-mindedness but whether maternal mind-mindedness influenced child behaviour. Mothers’ interactional mind-mindedness was assessed with 8-month-old infants, and child’s behavioural difficulties were assessed by maternal report at 44 months and by both maternal and teacher report at 61 months using the SDQ. Participating families came from socially diverse backgrounds which meant the sample could be divided into low and high SES groups to explore
whether SES moderated any relation between mind-mindedness and child
difficulties. The SDQ was used to score externalising difficulties (conduct problems and hyperactivity), and internalising difficulties (emotional symptoms and peer problems) as well as total difficulties.
Maternal mind-mindedness in the first year of life was related to children being reported with fewer behavioural difficulties but only in the low SES group. A mind- minded mother mitigated the negative effects of difficulties associated with a low income status on children’s behaviour at 44 and 61 months. Importantly, this relationship existed when maternal sensitivity was controlled, suggesting that mothers’ attunement to the infants’ internal states played a role in the prevention of behavioural difficulties irrespective of more general responsiveness to the infant. This contrasted with findings regarding mothers and children in the high SES group where maternal mind-mindedness was unrelated to behavioural difficulties. Instead, early maternal sensitivity was found to predict fewer externalising behaviours at 44 months. This suggests that in low-risk families, mothers’ sensitivity rather than mothers’ mind-mindedness may be important in reducing subsequent externalising behavioural difficulties.
It is noteworthy not only that mothers in the low SES group scored their children more highly for internalising and externalising behaviours at 44 months and for externalising behaviours at 61 months (with a non-significant trend for higher scores in internalising behaviours) than the high SES group, but also that the groups did not differ with respect to appropriate mind-related comments. Therefore, the finding of relations between interactional mind-mindedness and reports of child behavioural difficulties in the low SES group and not in the high SES group could be viewed as contrary to Walker et al.’s (2011) proposal that mind-mindedness may only be
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associated with lower levels of child difficulties. However, it is too soon to rule this proposal out for representational mind-mindedness given that findings may have been influenced by different mind-mindedness measures being used in the two studies. In addition, Walker and colleagues investigated concurrent relations between measures rather than the predictive nature of mind-mindedness.
On the basis of the studies previously reported, evidence appears to be mixed as to whether maternal mind-mindedness is related to child temperament and behaviour. However, a methodological issue needs to be considered because all these studies used maternal reports rather than observation-based measures of temperament and behaviour. Walker et al. (2011) only included parental ratings in their study so no observational data were available about children’s difficulties. This meant the study was limited to finding out whether there was a concurrent relationship between representational mind-mindedness and parents’ perceptions of behavioural difficulties. The findings of Meins et al. (2013) were also limited to questionnaire report of behavioural difficulties and so it was not possible to establish whether mothers’ early interactional mind-mindedness related to observational assessments of child behaviour in the preschool and early school years. One could argue that a relationship is more likely to be found between mothers’ mind-mindedness and maternal report of temperament than between mothers’ mind-mindedness and observational ratings of temperament because both maternal report and mind- mindedness (representational and interactional) depend on the mother’s
interpretation of child characteristics and behaviour. Additionally, one could argue that there is an increased likelihood for observational assessments of mind- mindedness and temperament to be related given that they are both online measures of behaviour. In this way, how much a mother focuses on her child’s internal states whilst playing might be influenced by the child’s behaviour in that particular interaction.