Nimroody,
Tehela (4/08) The impact of mother’s level of reflective functioning on child’s
play narratives, memory, and frustration tolerance (Rhiannon Allen, Ph.D.;
Nicholas Papouchis, Ph.D.; Philip Wong, Ph.D.)
This study examined the relation between
mother's level of reflective functioning (RF) (Fonagy, 1999) and her child's
play narratives, memory, and frustration tolerance. Thirty mothers were
administered the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), while their 5- to
6.5-year-old children were administered the MacArthur Story Stem Battery
(MSSB), the Kirsh Attachment Story Recall Task, and the Locked Box Task, a
frustration tolerance task that provided the child with a toy in a box that
could not be opened. AAI narratives were scored for RF. Children of mothers
with higher RF exhibited significantly more positive mental representations and
better emotional regulation on the MSSB but did not significantly differ from
the children of mothers with lower RF when it came to their ability to remember
attachment-related stories. Moreover, while no difference was found in
children's level of persistence during the locked Box Task, mothers with higher
RF were found to exhibit significantly higher attunement to their children
during the reunion segment of this task. Finally, on this same task, children
of mothers with higher RF were found to use less constructive strategies than
those of mothers with low RF. The significance of this finding, in the opposite
direction of that hypothesized, is discussed, as are the significant gender
effects observed.
