Parent-child conversations about the mind: Examining the effect of parent and child gender on the categories and referent of mental state talk

Abstract

Research has shown that parental mental state talk is related to children’s social understanding and is also a crucial medium for gender socialisation. Yet, there is a paucity of research on the relation between parent and child mental state talk during middle childhood. Moreover, literature on the effect of child gender on parent and child mental state talk have reported inconclusive findings. No studies to date have examined the effect of gender on the type of referents in parent and child mental state talk (i.e., referring to child’s or others’ mental states). Drawing from 97 parent-child conversation transcripts from a shared book reading task, this study investigated (i) the associations between parent and child mental state talk, (ii) gender differences in the frequency and variety of parent and child mental state talk and (iii) gender differences in the type of referents in parent and child mental state talk. Results indicate a positive correlation between the overall frequency of parent and child mental state talk, with only parents’ use of cognition terms yielding significant correlations with all three categories of child mental state talk. Additionally, there was no effect of gender on the type of referents and category of mental state terms in parent and children’s mental state talk. Collectively, these findings have implications on the role of parental mental state talk in fostering older children’s social understanding and gender socialisation outcomes.