母親のmind-mindednessと18ヶ月児の心の理解能力の関連 : 共同注意行動および内的状態語の発達との検討

Abstract

本研究では, 乳児期に測定された母親のMM(mind-mindedness)と, 18ヶ月児の心的理解能力との関連を 問い, 生後2年目におけるMMによる心の理解発達の促進機能に関する知見を得ることを目的とする｡なお, MMの個人差として量と質の2側面に着目するが, 質的側面の差異による子どもへの影響についてはこれまで議論されていないため, その特徴が18ヶ月児の心的理解と如何に絡み うるのか, 探索的分析を行うものとする｡

This study investigated the relations among maternal mind-mindedness (MM) and 18-month-old children's abilities of mind understanding. MM is the tendency to treat an infant as an individual with a mind (Meins, 1997). It's assumed that MM could foster children's mental development. The individual differences in maternal MM were measured when their infants were 6 months olds. After 1 year, the children's abilities of joint attention and mental state language were assessed (N=35). Maternal MM had a relation to children's responses to other's attention, that was their ability to follow other's pointing toward their behind. It was suggested that higher maternal MM could raise children's understanding of other's attention. The children whose mother had higher MM also had higher marks on mental state language skills. However, because children's language abilities were rated by their mothers, it was possible that highly mind-minded mothers tended to believe their children could understand mental state language, despite the children's true abilities. Finally, MM's effect on children's development of mind understanding via daily mother-child interactions was discussed.