Attachment and alexithymia are related, but mind-mindedness does not mediate this relationship

The main aim of the study was to check: (a) attachment-related differences in alexithymia and (b) the mediating role of mind-mindedness in attachment-alexithymia relationship. Method: Attachment (PAM; Berry et al., 2007), alexithymia (TAS-20; Bagby, Taylor, & Parker, 1994) and mind-mindedness (“describe your friend” method; Meins et al, 2008) were measured in the sample of 128 Polish undergraduates. Results: Positive associations were seen between attachment anxiety and overall alexithymia scores and difficulty identifying emotions. Attachment avoidance was positively associated with overall alexithymia score, difficulty describing feelings and externally oriented thinking. Mind-mindedness was not related to neither attachment or alexithymia. Conclusion: There are attachment-related differences in alexithymia, but mind-mindedness seems not to mediate attachment-alexithymia relationship

How do parents use mental state language during narration to their 2- and 4-year-old children?

Parents influence the development of children’s social understanding by using mental state terms that denote concepts which children are about to develop (Taumoepeau & Ruffman, 2006, 2008) or via the usage of contrastive and/or causal mental state talk (Peterson & Slaughter, 2003). The present longitudinal study examined parent-child dyads and assessed parental mental state talk (MST) during picture-book narration. Seventy-four parents told their children a story twice, when the children were 2 and 4 years old. The same wordless picture book was used to elicit the narration at each time point. Two criteria were used to classify MST: type of utterance (affective, perceptual, or cognitive) and complexity of utterance (simple or clarifying). Parental MST was more frequent in narrations to 4-yearolds than to 2-year-olds. Parents directed more complex MST to 4-year-old children than to 2-year-olds. Affective references were most common at both time points, while cognitive utterances hardly occurred. Nevertheless, growing trends were observed in all types of MST. The results suggest that parents match their MST to the children’s level of social understanding development

Constructing a narrative in the standard unexpected transfer test in adolescence and adulthood

The aim of the presented research was the replication and extension of the research by Nelson, Plesa and Henseler (1998), which was the basis for examining the nature of the theory of mind or mentalizing ability (that is, the ability to attribute mental states to other people in order to explain and predict their behaviors) in adolescents and adults. Specifically, its experience-like versus theory-like character. The test, an unexpected transfer task (the Max story), was completed by 827 people aged 13 to 75 (average 21.9). Half of them were supposed to solve the task with a shorter version of the story (including only the facts), and the other half were given the longer version (including descriptions of emotions, beliefs of the protagonist and explanations of ongoing events). All of the answers were then categorized applying Nelson's classification and two other types of analysis. Gender, age and fields of interest were taken into account during analysis of the participants' answers. The Polish respondents rarely answered in a narrative way (only 13%, in contrast to Nelson's result of 46%). Despite the fact that age was not a factor corresponding to a narrative answer, it was proven that older respondents did indeed assume the first person perspective when justifying Max's behavior. Women, more often than men, appealed to the knowledge and the protagonist's way of thinking. The respondents' fields of interest did not seem to diversify the obtained results, nor did the version of the story. The results do not allow us to draw unambiguous conclusions about the nature of the adult's theory of mind, but they form the basis for analyzing the methodology of research on theory of mind

Generating and understanding jokes by five- and nine-year-olds as an expression of theory of mind

The main aim of the presented research is to describe children's ability to generate and understand humorous stories and pictures drawn by their peers and older or younger children. From the perspective of research on children's theories of mind, we assume that in middle childhood we will observe a transition from the basic, copy theory of mind to the interpretative one (Carpendale & Chandler, 1996). We examined 60 five- and nine-year-old children in two phases. During the first phase, the children were asked to draw a funny picture and then justify what made it funny and they had also to present the funny story. Two months later, the children were presented with some pictures chosen after the first phase as the most typical one. They had to justify why these pictures are funny. The obtained results indicate that there is a relation between the age of the subjects and the kind of interpretations of funny pictures which are consistent with the author's intentions. Significantly more nine-year-olds than five-year-olds accurately understood the author's intentions when interpreting his picture. The presented data indicate that changes in the theory of mind take place also in middle childhood and lead to a complex, interpretative theory of mind which can be discovered when researching children's understanding of jokes

Advanced theory of mind in adolescence : do age, gender and friendship style play a role?

The ability to recursively infer the mental states of others to explain their complex behavior in ambiguous social situation may be called Advanced Theory of Mind (aToM). The relations between two components of aToM, cognitive and affective, measured on a behavioral level in 151 Polish 13-year-olds and 174 16-year-olds was examined. The role of age, gender and friendship style and its relations to the cognitive and affective aToM was explored. Cognitive aToM was only weakly to moderately related to affective aToM. Across both age groups females scored higher than males. Males' aToM abilities did not differ according to age, but they scored higher in the cognitive aToM than affective ToM. Also, different aspects of friendship style were significant predictors of both aToM abilities. The implications for two aToM components within a gendered social context were discussed

Poznanie i komunikacja – rozwój typowy i atypowy. Wprowadzenie

Tytuł niniejszego tomu Poznanie i komunikacja – rozwój typowy i atypowy sugeruje, że tematyka prezentowanych artykułów będzie skupiała się wokół rozważanego od lat w psychologii rozwoju problemu relacji mowa – myślenie. Spojrzenie na ten wciąż aktualny temat z perspektywy badań i analiz dokonywanych przez polskich psychologów z różnych ośrodków przynosi wiele ciekawych wniosków, na które warto zwrócić uwagę już we wprowadzeniu. Druga część tytułu – rozwój typowy i atypowy – sugeruje, że zawarte w tym tomie teksty dotyczą nie tylko rozwoju prawidłowego, ale również zmian rozwojowych, które zwykliśmy nazywać „zaburzeniem rozwoju”, „nieprawidłowością rozwojową”. Posłużono się terminem „atypowy” dla oznaczenia rozwoju innego niż przeciętny, rozwoju zachodzącego według innych, nieznanych nam jeszcze praw czy reguł

Recenzja

H. Rudolph Schaffer (2006), Key Concepts in Developmental Psychology, London: Sag

Poznanie i komunikacja : rozwój typowy i atypowy : wprowadzenie

Tytuł niniejszego tomu Poznanie i komunikacja – rozwój typowy i atypowy sugeruje, że tematyka prezentowanych artykułów będzie skupiała się wokół rozważanego od lat w psychologii rozwoju problemu relacji mowa – myślenie. Spojrzenie na ten wciąż aktualny temat z perspektywy badań i analiz dokonywanych przez polskich psychologów z różnych ośrodków przynosi wiele ciekawych wniosków, na które warto zwrócić uwagę już we wprowadzeniu. Druga część tytułu – rozwój typowy i atypowy – sugeruje, że zawarte w tym tomie teksty dotyczą nie tylko rozwoju prawidłowego, ale również zmian rozwojowych, które zwykliśmy nazywać „zaburzeniem rozwoju”, „nieprawidłowością rozwojową”. Posłużono się terminem „atypowy” dla oznaczenia rozwoju innego niż przeciętny, rozwoju zachodzącego według innych, nieznanych nam jeszcze praw czy reguł

Krytycznie o sposobach badania teorii umysłu. Dziecięce strategie radzenia sobie z rozumieniem stanów mentalnych na materiale metafor

The critique of the ways of investigation on theories of mind. The strategies used by children copying with understanding mental states on metaphors The researches on children’s ability to understand mental states as reasons of people’s behavior are usually conduct in false belief paradigm (Wellman, Cross i Watson, 2001; Flavell, 2000). The article presents the critique of this classic method and the research  employing new procedure called metaphors’ test. Metaphors’ test enables to examine children’s mentalizing ability and simultaneously to analyze cognitive strategies used by children when they have to understand metaphor  in order to perceive mental state of another person. The aim of this analysis was to verify main theses of the Siegler (1996) overlapping waves theory in the domain of children’s theories of mind. We examined 109 children aged from 3 years and 5 months to 5 years 11 months (the mean age was 59 months). Tested children have to solve 15 items of metaphors’ test. The children was randomly assigned to one of three groups. There were no cues in the control group but in two experimental groups two different kinds of hints were used.  First of all, the obtained results indicate that the ability to perceive mental states on the material of metaphors develops with age (r = 0,36 on p < 0,001). Secondly, the analysis of strategies used by children in metaphor test  provide the prove to state that the frequency of using some strategies changes with age. It means that there is a transition from realism to mature, mentalistic understanding of inner states.  

Krytycznie o sposobach badania teorii umysłu : dziecięce strategie radzenia sobie z rozumieniem stanów mentalnych na materiale metafor

Badania nad dziecięcą zdolnością do odczytywania stanów mentalnych jako przyczyn zachowań innych ludzi prowadzone są zwykle z użyciem paradygmatu fałszywego przekonania (Wellman, Cross i Watson, 2001; Flavell, 2000). W artykule przedstawiono krytykę klasycznego paradygmatu oraz badania prowadzone z zastosowaniem procedury zwanej testem metafor. Test metafor pozwala badać dziecięcą sprawność w mentalizowaniu, a zarazem umożliwia analizę strategii poznawczych, którymi posługują się dzieci w rozwiązywaniu zadań wymagających zrozumienia metafory w celu odczytania stanu mentalnego drugiej osoby. Analiza dziecięcych strategii miała na celu próbę weryfikacji tez modelu Sieglera (1996) (overlapping waves theory) w obszarze badań nad dziecięcymi teoriami umysłu. Zbadano 109 dzieci w wieku od 3 lat i 5 miesięcy do 5 lat i 11 miesięcy (średnia wieku wynosiła 59 miesięcy). Wszystkie dzieci rozwiązywały 15-zadaniowy test metafor. Dzieci losowo przydzielono do jednej z trzech grup, w której albo rozwiązywały test bez żadnej podpowiedzi (grupa kontrolna), albo wykonywały to samo zadanie, ale udzielano im podpowiedzi (dwie grupy eksperymentalne). Wyniki badań wskazują, że z wiekiem rośnie zdolność dzieci do odczytywania stanów mentalnych na materiale metafor (r = 0,36 na p < 0,001). Poza tym, analiza strategii stosowanych przez dzieci podczas udzielania odpowiedzi w teście metafor pozwala twierdzić, że wraz z wiekiem zmienia się częstotliwość używania przez dzieci określonych strategii, następuje odejście od realizmu i przejście do pełnego, mentalistycznego rozumienia stanów wewnętrznych