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Mind-Mindedness in Parents of Looked After Children

Fishburn, S, Meins, E, Greenhow, SK, Jones, C and Hackett, S (2017) Mind-Mindedness in Parents of Looked After Children. Developmental Psychology, 53 (10). pp. 1954-1965. ISSN 0012-1649

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Abstract

The studies reported here aimed to test the proposal that mind-mindedness is a quality of personal relationships by assessing mind-mindedness in parent–child dyads where the relationship has not spanned the child’s life or where the relationship has been judged dysfunctional. Studies 1 and 2 investigated differences in mind-mindedness between adoptive parents (ns 89, 36) and biological parents from the general population (ns 54, 114). Both studies found lower mind-mindedness in adoptive compared with biological parents. Study 2’s results showed that this group difference was independent of parental mental health and could not fully be explained in terms of children’s behavioral difficulties. Study 3 investigated differences in mind-mindedness in foster carers (n=122), biological parents whose children were subject to a child protection plan (n=172), and a community sample of biological parents (n=128). The level of mind-mindedness in foster carers and parents who were involved with child protection services was identical and lower than that in the community sample; children’s behavioral difficulties could not account for the difference between the two groups of biological parents. In all three studies, non-biological carers’ tendency to describe their children with reference to pre-adoption or placement experiences was negatively related to mind-mindedness. These findings are in line with mind-mindedness being a relational construct.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: This article may not exactly replicate the final version published in the APA journal. It is not the copy of record
Uncontrolled Keywords: 1701 Psychology, 1702 Cognitive Science
Subjects: H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman
Divisions: Humanities & Social Science
Publisher: American Psychological Association
Date Deposited: 23 Feb 2017 12:34
Last Modified: 04 Sep 2021 11:53
DOI or ID number: 10.1037/dev0000304
URI: https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/5704
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