ERIC Number: EJ1470997
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025-May
Pages: 11
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0165-0254
EISSN: EISSN-1464-0651
Available Date: 0000-00-00
Inter-Relations between Mind-Mindedness, Maternal Communicative Style in the Context of Attachment Distress, and Infant-Mother Attachment Security
Elisabetta Lombardi1; Cinzia Di Dio2,3; Elizabeth Meins4; Chiara Giovanelli5; Franca Crippa5; Daniela Traficante3,6; Antonella Marchetti2,3; Lucia Leonilde Carli5
International Journal of Behavioral Development, v49 n3 p288-298 2025
The quality of the maternal communication plays a critical role in the development of secure infant-caregiver attachment. This relationship may be mediated by the caregivers' capacity to recognize and appropriately respond to the child's mental states (i.e., mind-mindedness). To specifically explore the role of mind-mindedness in the relationship between maternal communicative style and attachment, associations between maternal communicative style and attachment patterns were assessed in 88 infant-mother dyads using mind-mindedness as a mediator. Communicative style and attachment patterns were evaluated during the reunion episodes in the strange situation procedure. Communicative style was evaluated using the Coding System for the analysis of the Caregivers' Communication Style scale, which produced three distinct communicative patterns: Misleading Communication, Denial Communication, and Affective Support. Attachment was classified by standard procedure as insecure-avoidant, secure, and insecure-ambivalent. Mind-mindedness, evaluated during free play, assessed mothers' use of appropriate versus non-attuned mind-related comments. The results support a significant mediation of appropriate mind-minded comments in the relationship between affective supportive communicative style and both secure and insecure-avoidant attachment patterns, strengthening and mitigating direct relationships, respectively. No mediating role of mind-mindedness was found for insecure-ambivalent attachment. These findings help clarify the role of mind-mindedness in relation to communicative style and attachment and outline a certain behavioral consistency in mothers' responses to their child across different observational contexts.
Descriptors: Metacognition, Mothers, Attachment Behavior, Infants, Parent Child Relationship, Foreign Countries, Individual Characteristics, Interpersonal Communication, Stress Variables, Correlation
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Italy (Milan)
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: 1eCampus University, Novedrate, Italy; 2Research Center on Theory of Mind and Social Competence in the Lifespan (CeRiToM), Italy; 3Department of Psychology, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy; 4Department of Psychology, University of York, UK; 5Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy; 6Scientific Institute IRCCS E. Medea, Italy