Sharp, C., & Fonagy, P. (2008). The Parent's Capacity to Treat the Child as a Psychological Agent: Constructs, Measures and Implications for Developmental Psychopathology

Question 1

What is the article about?

Answer 1

The review article compares and contrasts different constructs refering to the parent’s capacity to treat the child as a psychological agent, and discuss the possibility that these diverse constructs may tap into the same underlying system.

Question 2

Define psychological agent.

Answer 2

A psychological agent can be defined as a system which can reason about either their own or other people’s explicit goals, intentions, and beliefs.

Question 3

Van LJzendoorn (1995) uses a term “transmission gap” to describe a problem in the field of developmental psychology. Which problem?

Answer 3

Ever since Bowly’s seminal work suggested that attachment security is transmitted from one generation to the next, attachment researchers have been struggling to formulate the mechanisms responsible for this inter-generational transmission. This is what IJenzoodrn calls “the transmission gap”.

Question 4

Do we know anything about the transmission gap?

Answer 4

The result of a meta-analysis have shown that maternal sensitivity accounts for only 23% of the variance in the association between maternal attachment representation, as measured by the adult attachment interview, and infant attachment.

Question 5

The result of a meta-analysis have shown that maternal sensitivity accounts for only 23% of the variance in the association between maternal attachment representation, as measured by the adult attachment interview, and infant attachment.

What does that actually mean?

Answer 5

idk.

Question 6

Mentalisation and theory of mind feels similar. Why are they not used interchangeably?

Answer 6

Over the last decade the construct of theory of mind and its false belief paradigm have been criticized for being too narrow. Thus, some authors prefer to use the term mentalizing instead because it is slightly more general and not limited to specific tasks or age groups.

Question 7

“Mentalizing is thought to play a central role in the process by which attachment security is passed on from parent to child”. How??

Answer 7

Main (1991) suggests that children’s early experiences with their caregivers are important for their subsequent metacognitive knowledge and the monitoring of attachment experiences. She suggests that experiences with parents may not only alter the contents of the child’s mind, but also the ability to operate upon these contents.

For attachment theorists, mentalizing thus becomes the mechanism by which (1) the mother-child relationship exerts its influence on the attachment secuirty of the child and (2) the mother-child relationship influences the child’s socio-cognitive development.

Question 8

Which “mentalization”-constructs are compared in the article?

Answer 8

1. Reflective function (Fonagy)
2. Maternal Mind-mindedness
3. Parental Meta-emotion Philosophy.
4. Parent’s Cognitions about Their Children’s Intentions and Attributions

Question 9

Fonagy, Steele, Moral, Steele, and Higgit (1991) did an early study on the mentalization of parents related to attachment categories. What study?

Answer 9

In their study, AAI interviews were conducted with 100 first-time mother and 100 first-time fathers before the birth of their child. AAI responses were coded for the frequency of parents’ references to mental states in their descriptions of childhood relationships. The families were followed up at 12 and 18 months after the babies’ birth, during which the strange situation procedure was administered. Findings demonstrated that mentalizing in the parent predicted the likelihood of their children being securely attached at follow-up, even when controlling for verbal IQ.

Question 10

How does the mentalization litterature brush up with the temperament litterature?

Answer 10

They look at the same things. This litterature has clearly pointed to the fact that most aspects of child development, including attachment style and socio-cognitive development, should be understood in the context of a child’s temerament and the style of parenting that the temperament engenders.

Question 11

What does the concept of RF refer to?

Answer 11

The concept of RF refers to mentalization measured in the context of attachment.

Question 12

The concept of RF is rooted in a psychological tradition, which?

Answer 12

The concept of RF is rooted in the psychoanalytic tradition.

Question 13

The concept of RF refers to mentalization measured in the context of attachment. What does this mean for the measuring of RF?

Answer 13

Measuring RF involves coding the level of mentalization against the background of individuals’ representations of their attachment relationships.

Question 14

How do we operationalize RF?

Answer 14

Two types of measures have been operationalized: adult RF as measured by the RF scale and parental RF as indexed by the application of the RF scale to PDI (parent development interview) ratings.

Question 15

How is mind-mindedness (MMM) related to refleflective functioning (RF)?

Answer 15

MMM is related to RF as much as both consider the mother’s capacity to treat the child as a psychological agent.

Question 16

How do mind-mindedness (MMM) differ from reflective functioning (RF)?

Answer 16

They differ in operationalization in that MMM involves the evaluation of observed “online”, real-life interactions between parent-child dyads(pairs).

Question 17

What does parental meta-emotion philosophy (PMEP) refer to?

Answer 17

PMEP refers to an organized set of feelings and thoughts about one’s own emotions and one’s children’s emotions.

Question 18

Gottman and co-workers suggest that the optimal meta-emotion philosophy (PMEP) in terms of preschool children’s psychosocial adjustments is that of …

Answer 18

an emotion-coaching philosophy.

Question 19

Gottman and co-workers suggest that the optimal meta-emotion philosophy (PMEP) in terms of preschool children’s psychosocial adjustments is that of an emotion-coaching philosophy. As opposed to what?

Answer 19

As opposed to an emotion-dismissing or “laissez-faire” philosophy.

Question 20

Gottman and co-workers suggest that the optimal meta-emotion philosophy (PMEP) in terms of preschool children’s psychosocial adjustments is that of an emotion-coaching philosophy. Mention the five components of such a philosophy.

Answer 20

1. Parents are aware of low-intensity emotions in themselves and in their children.
2. They view the child’s negative emotion as an opportunity for intimacy or teaching.
3. They validate their child’s emotion.
4. They assist the child in verbally labelling his/her emotions.
5. They problem-solve with the child, setting behavioral limits and discussing goals and strategies for dealing with the situation that led to the negative emotion.

Question 21

How does RF and MMM overlap with PMEP?

Answer 21

Both share a philosophical basis in the notion of “meta”-processing of cognitions or emotions.

Question 22

Strassberg (1997) showed vignettes to mothers of aggressive vs. non-aggressive children. The vignettes reflected forms of child non-compliance, each varying in severity of non-compliance. How did the mothers’ think about the childrens’ intents?

Answer 22

Mothers of aggressive children ascribed hostile intent to children on all forms of non-compliance and not only the severe conditions, while average mothers attributed hostile intent only to the most sever conditions.

Question 23

Strassberg (1997) showed vignettes to mothers of aggressive vs. non-aggressive children. The vignettes reflected forms of child non-compliance, each varying in severity of non-compliance. Mothers of aggressive children ascribed hostile intent to children on all forms of non-compliance and not only the severe conditions, while average mothers attributed hostile intent only to the most sever conditions. Interpret these results.

Answer 23

The most important question when interpreting these results are whther they reflect the mother as an accurate appraiser of her child’s intention (a ‘child effect’). It is certainly reasonable to argue that aggressive boys do in fact display more hostile intent compared with ‘average’ boys. The alternative account is that they underlying process may be ascribed to a predisposition to negative attributions of intentions (a ‘mother effect’), in which case mother may be maintaining or even causing aggressive behavior.

Question 24

What can we learn from the research of Strassberg on mothers’ attribution of noncompliant behavior?

Answer 24

That mentalizing is not enough. Even though the mother may be mentalizing her child, she could be doing so incorrectly.

Question 25

How do Sharp and Fonagy conclude on the similarity or difference between the mentalization constructs?

Answer 25

They suggest that these constructs, although distinct in the operationalization of parental mentalization, all rely on a common and evolutionary-based neurobiological mentalization circuitry that, if ‘broken’ in the parent, may lead to reduced mentalization capacity in thechild, which in turn, through deficient emotional regulation processes, may lead to the development of symptoms of psychopathology.