Non‐Attuned Mind‐Mindedness, Infant Negative Affect, and Emotional Availability: Assessing Mind‐Mindedness during the Still‐Face Paradigm

Abstract

Mind‐mindedness captures caregiver orientation to infant mental states expressed in mind‐related comments to infant cues, typically assessed during free play. There are two orthogonal dimensions: Appropriate comments accurately interpret the infant's experience, and non‐attuned comments are judged by observers to be inaccurate interpretations. Appropriate comments have been consistently associated with optimal caregiving behavior, but less is known about non‐attuned comments, rare during free play. Further, available evidence suggests mind‐mindedness is independent of infant temperament, but few studies have examined relations between mind‐mindedness and infant behavior during real‐time interaction. We addressed these issues using the Still‐Face Paradigm. Participants were 76 mothers and their 7‐month‐old infants. Mind‐mindedness, emotional availability, and infant negative affect were independently coded. Unexpectedly, appropriate mind‐related comments were not associated with emotional availability nor with infant negative affect. Mothers who made non‐attuned comments showed lower emotional availability, and their infants showed more extreme responses to the still‐face—either no negative affect or crying. Infants whose mothers made non‐attuned comments early showed less recovery in reunion episodes. Infant negative affect in early episodes also influenced mind‐related comments; mothers whose infants showed no negative affect made fewer appropriate comments in later episodes. Implications of assessing mind‐mindedness in stress contexts are discussed.

Fathers’ and Mothers’ Early Mind-Mindedness Predicts Social Competence and Behavior Problems in Childhood

“…Similarly, in a recent meta-analysis, nonattuned mind-mindedness predicted children’s insecure attachment more strongly than the absence of appropriate comments ( r = 0.45 versus r = 0.26; Zeegers et al 2017). Moreover, McMahon and Newey (2018) found that mothers’ use of nonattuned mind-related comments during a stressful situation (Still-Face Paradigm) was associated with dysregulated affect in their 6-month-old infants. Only when children are securely attached, they feel comfortable to explore their environment freely, engaging more easily in new social experiences.…”

“…Insecure attachment may, therefore, be one of the mechanisms linking parental mind-mindedness to children’s behavior problems. Future research on the association between parents’ mind-mindedness and children’s difficulties should, therefore, include a measure of attachment, and should examine parents’ spontaneous use of mind-related comments in attachment-activating rather than free-play contexts, to increase the specificity and sensitivity of the measure (Bigelow et al 2015; McMahon and Bernier 2017; Milligan et al 2015; McMahon and Newey 2018).…”

“…Social competence refers to the ability to take the perspective of others, comfort and assist them, being collaborative and helpful, use negotiation, accept compromises, and be happy with one’s own accomplishments (Luteijn et al 2000). Social competence has been found to be associated with emotion regulation abilities (Blair et al 2015), attachment security (Groh et al 2014), and Theory of mind (Devine et al 2016), and all these three aspects have been found to be predicted by mothers’ mind-mindedness (e.g., Crucianelli et al 2018; McMahon and Newey 2018 for emotion regulation; Meins et al 2003 for attachment security; Kirk et al 2015; Laranjo et al 2014; Lundy 2013; Meins et al 2013a, b for Theory of mind). One could, therefore, expect that parents’ mind-mindedness can stimulate children’s social competence by improving their early socio-emotional as well as their socio-cognitive development.…”

“…Two crucial aspects of mind-mindedness need further attention. First, the relation between nonattuned mind-mindedness and behavior problems is yet unexplored, despite its acknowledged negative impact on children’s development of secure attachment (Meins et al 2012; Zeegers et al 2017), and early emotion regulation (Crucianelli et al 2018; McMahon and Newey 2018; Zeegers et al 2018). Parents’ continuous misunderstanding of the child’s inner states may hinder the quality of the relationship and the child’s subsequent socio-emotional development.…”

Regulation During the Second Year: Executive Function and Emotion Regulation Links to Joint Attention, Temperament, and Social Vulnerability in a Latin American Sample

“…Regarding age, associations were also obtained in EF, aligning with the proposal that there is significant development in this regulatory ability during the second year (e.g., Wiebe et al, 2010; Miller and Marcovitch, 2015). Although there were no age differences in ER performance, the absence of associations could be due to the fact that the responses to the SFP are fairly stable throughout the different ages, as the majority of studies have also found a lack of age effects (Mesman et al, 2009; McMahon and Newey, 2018). However, more research is needed using this paradigm at 2 years of age.…”