You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The Mentalizing Stories for Adolescents (MSA) was developed specifically for our research on the developmental aspects of mentalization in adolescence. Existing measures of social cognition are intended mainly for administration to either children or adults and are inappropriate for research with young people. Further, currently available tests are for the most part first- and second-order theory of mind tests, developed primarily for research on autistic spectrum disorders. There is a need for an instrument with which to assess the quality of mental state understanding in a more contextually and affectively embedded and realistic form. We aimed to develop a measure that would assess the young person's ability to provide accurate emotional and intentional state justifications of one's own and other people's behavior in an emotionally charged, attachment-relevant, and age-appropriate context. This study represents our first effort to validate the MSA.
Mentalization is closely related to a family of concepts including theory of mind, reflective functioning, mind reading, social cognition, social understanding, emotional intelligence, perspective-taking, and empathy. It entails “making sense of the actions of oneself and others on the basis of intentional mental states, such as desires, feelings, and beliefs” (Bateman and Fonagy 2004, p. 58).
Over the last decade, studies undertaken by cognitive neuroscientists have informed us that the social brain undergoes a major remodeling during adolescence. Changes in the neural architecture coincide with other dramatic changes in adolescent social behavior, such as individuation from parents, a deepening of relationships with peers, and the emergence of romantic relationships. For such developmental achievements to take place, a fully functioning mind is essential. Given the relatively frequent occurrence of breakdown in adolescence and the common experience of internal turmoil in normally developing adolescents