母亲将心比心与儿童创造力潜能:依恋的调节作用

Maternal Mind-Mindedness Predicts Creative Potential in Chinese Preschool Children:Moderation of Attachment

本研究考察学步儿期母亲将心比心和亲子依恋安全性与学龄前儿童创造力潜能的关系。参与者为92个家庭,儿童14个月时编码亲子依恋安全性,25个月时编码母亲将心比心,61个月时考察儿童创造力潜能。结果发现,将心比心与创造力潜能正相关;依恋安全性调节将心比心及愿望和认知状态评论与创造力潜能的相关,正相关关系仅出现在依恋安全性较低的亲子对。故本研究表明母亲将心比心对提升依恋安全性较低儿童的创造力潜能有更突出的作用。

Creative potential is a cognitive potential reflecting the extent to which an individual can generate novel and useful things and ideas.The early development of creative potential is shaped by parenting behaviors and incubated in parent-child relationships.However,little research has examined the development of creative potential among Chinese preschoolers and how parental verbal comments related to a child's mental states(i.e.,mind-mindedness)are predictive of this development.Therefore,the first aim of the current study is to examine whether maternal mind-mindedness in toddlerhood predicts child creative potential during the preschool period.Moreover,because,in toddlerhood,mothers may give comments on various mental states of a child(e.g.,desire,cognition,and emotion)with different frequencies,we surmise that young children may have different levels of need for these verbal inputs.In turn,these comments may show distinctive developmental relevance to child cognitive outcomes including creative potential.Therefore,the second aim is to examine whether maternal comments on desire,cognition,and emotion might differentially predict child creative potential overtime.Furthermore,previous studies have shown that the influences of early parenting behaviors are relationship-dependent to some extent,suggesting that how maternal mind-mindedness and its corresponding components foretell child creative potential may differ for mother-child dyads with secure and insecure attachment.Thus,the third aim of this study is to examine whether the security of mother-child attachment may moderate the longitudinal associations between maternal mind-mindedness(or the comments on desire,cognition,and emotion)and child creative potential.Drawing from 92 children and their families(boys=39,girls=53),we coded the security of mother-child attachment from the Strange Situation task at 14 months.At 25 months,maternal mind-mindedness and its components including adequate comments on desire,cognition,and emotion were observed and coded from three 5-min mother-child free-plays.At 61 months,child creative potential was assessed using the Thinking Creativity in Action and Movement Test.Results showed that maternal mind-mindedness at 25 months was positively associated with child creative potential at 61 months.This association was further moderated by 14-month attachment security.Specifically,for children who were relatively securely attached to their mothers,the association was nonsignificant,whereas for children who were insecurely attached,maternal mind-mindedness was positively associated with child creative potential.Although the three specific components of mind-mindedness were not directly related to child creative potential,the similar moderation effects of 14-month attachment security were found for the predictions of comments on desire and comments on cognition,indicating that for children who were insecurely attached,maternal comments on desire or cognition could scaffold their creative potential overtime,whereas such scaffolding influences of maternal mental state-related comments were not evident for children who were relatively securely attached.Taken together,the current findings suggest that maternal mind-mindedness could facilitate child creative potential in early childhood,yet the strength of this positive association is dependent on the security of mother-child attachment.Therefore,our research is informative for future interventions and education programs.It is possible that compared with their peers,young children with poorer parent-child relationships in the early development could benefit more from the verbal inputs of parents for having their creative potential facilitated.