Children's theory of mind as a mechanism linking parents' mind-mindedness in infancy with children's conscience.

Autor: Goffin KC; Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA. Electronic address: kathryn-goffin@uiowa.edu., Kochanska G; Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA., Yoon JE; Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Journal of experimental child psychology [J Exp Child Psychol] 2020 May; Vol. 193, pp. 104784. Date of Electronic Publication: 2020 Jan 25.
DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2019.104784
Abstrakt: Growing research on parental mind-mindedness has revealed significant positive associations between parents' appropriate mind-minded (MM) comments to their infants and children's future theory of mind (ToM). In turn, ToM has been broadly linked with a range of social-moral competencies. However, few (if any) studies have examined long-term paths from mothers' and fathers' mind-mindedness in infancy to conscience at early school age, with ToM serving as a mediator of those links. We tested such a model in a prospective longitudinal study of 102 community infants, mothers, and fathers. Parents' MM comments to their infants were coded in naturalistic interactions in snack and play contexts at 7 months. Children's ToM was assessed in false-belief tasks at 4.5 and 5.5 years, and two aspects of their conscience were assessed at 6.5 years: discomfort following transgressions and prosocial judgments in hypothetical moral dilemmas. We tested our model in a comprehensive path analysis that accounted for developmental continuity of both aspects of conscience. Children's ToM was positively associated with both measures of future conscience. The long-term paths from parental mind-mindedness in infancy to conscience were found for mother-child relationships only. For mothers and children, we supported the paths from maternal appropriate MM comments during a snack context in infancy to both aspects of children's conscience mediated by children's ToM. The findings extend earlier evidence suggesting the potentially important role of the parent-child interactive context for long-term effects of early parental mind-mindedness and highlight differences in the roles MM comments may play in mother-child and father-child relationships.
(Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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