What Makes a Mind-Minded Mother?

Past research shows that maternal mind-mindedness (MM) benefits children’s development, however, what factors make a mind-minded mother remains less certain. This research primarily investigated factors that relate to individual differences in interactional MM (Studies 1, 2 & 3) and representational MM (Studies 4 & 5). A secondary aim was to further understand how the two MM forms are operationalized in mothers with young children (Study 6). Studies 1, 2 and 3 assessed whether resting high-frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV), an index of cardiac vagal tone, predicted interactional MM in independent samples of mothers with infants and toddlers. Previous correlates of interactional MM and resting HF-HRV were also taken into account. Results indicated that resting HF-HRV did not relate to interactional MM in mothers of infants nor toddlers. However, emotion recognition accuracy predicted interactional MM in mothers of infants but not in those of toddlers, suggesting that recognising emotions accurately is particularly relevant to maternal attunement during infancy. Study 4 indicated that parenting stress and psychological mindedness, previous correlates of representational MM in mothers of preschoolers, did not predict representational MM in mothers of infants and toddlers. Representational MM may therefore manifest differently in mothers of children in the first few years of life, compared to older children. Study 5 showed that received supportive parenting did not predict representational MM in mothers of primary-school-aged children, however, mothers’ ethnicity, separate from cultural values, was a marginal predictor. Study 6 reported that when measured concurrently in a lab, interactional and representational MM were related in mothers of toddlers. This knowledge confirms that the two MM constructs are related in mothers of children in their second year and older. Study 6 also indicated that representational MM was specific to close relationships in mothers of young children. Understanding what factors make a mind-minded mother, and how MM operates in mothers of young children contributes to supporting mother-child attachment in general and clinical populations.

Grantor dc:publisher

UNSW, Sydney

Year dc:date

2019

Author dc:creator

• Ch'Ng, Heidi

• Attunement
• Mind-mindedness
• Maternal

Statement dc:rights

• open access
• CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
• free_to_read

Licence

• https://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2
• https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/au/

Language dc:language

EN

Identifier

https://doi.org/10.26190/unsworks/21618

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:unsworks.library.unsw.edu.au:1959.4/64946