The Construction of Self in Relationships: Narratives and References to Mental States during Picture-Book Reading Interactions between Mothers and Children

摘要

Previous studies showed that mothers vary in the way in which they discuss\udpast experiences with their children, since they can exhibit narrative (elaborative) or\udparadigmatic (repetitive) styles to different extents. Given this background, the aim of\udthe present study was to analyze differences in the mothers’ use of narrative styles\udand mental state language (MSL), as a function of children’s age and gender. Thirty\uddyads consisting of mothers and their 4- to 6-year-old children were observed during\uda picture-book reading interaction. Maternal utterances were coded according to the\udcategories described by Tessler and Nelson (1994), classifying each mother as Narrative\udor Paradigmatic. Eight categories of MSL were analyzed: perceptual, emotional (positive\udand negative), volitional, cognitive, communicative, and moral. The results confirmed\udthe existence of the two maternal styles observed in the earlier studies. Importantly,\udwe found that the mothers of younger children were more narrative than paradigmatic,\udwhereas the opposite pattern occurred for the mothers of older children (they were more\udparadigmatic than narrative). As concerns MSL, the results indicated that the use of\udcommunicative terms was significantly more frequent for narrative than for paradigmatic\udmothers, and decreased linearly with children’s age. Lastly, the mothers of younger\udchildren referred their MSL more frequently to the book characters than to themselves\udor to the child. Taken together, these results support the idea that mothers adapt\udtheir narrative styles and MSL input to the growing abilities of their children, therefore\udcontributing to the development of social understanding.