Discovering Maternal Minds: Exploring Maternal Mind-Mindedness for Preschoolers

Abstract Most studies on mind-mindedness (MM) and its role in child development have been conducted predominantly in Western countries. To address this gap, we conducted the first-ever qualitative study in Pakistan with a sample of working and nonworking mothers (N = 30) of preschoolers (aged 2–6 years). Our aim was to assess their ability to describe their children in a mind-directed manner. Each mother was asked to describe her child. The transcripts of these four- to five-minute speech samples were coded for (i) mental attributes (comments that refer to or describe the child's mental life), (ii) behavioral attributes (comments that refer to the child's behavior), (iii) physical attributes (physical appearance, age, position in the family), (iii) general attributes (any vague comment), and (iv) self-referential attributes (comments in which the primary reference is self-focused rather than describing the child). The results showed that 19 out of 30 mothers could appropriately describe their child in the context of their mental characteristics, as calculated by the index score given in the coding manual (Meins & Fernyhough, 2015). In addition, variations in mothers' responses on the basis of their occupation status and the child's birth order were also assessed qualitatively. Working mothers displayed less mind-mindedness than nonworking mothers did, and mothers with only one child were also found to be less mind-minded. This is the latest and entirely new study conducted in Pakistan and therefore offers a breakthrough in research. Potential limitations include a lack of generalizability and possible bias in mothers’ descriptions to appear socially desirable.