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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 20, 2026

Assessing the Coherence of Parents' Short Narratives Regarding their Child Using the Five-Minute Speech Sample Procedure

Assessing the Coherence of Parents' Short Narratives Regarding their Child Using the Five-Minute Speech Sample Procedure

Published on: September 19, 2019

Sex differences moderate the relationship between adolescent language and mentalization.

Helena J V Rutherford¹, Justin D Wareham, Ioanna Vrouva

¹Child Study Center, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06519, USA.

Personality Disorders

|July 18, 2012

Summary

Language skills impact explicit mentalization differently in adolescent boys and girls. While language abilities correlate with explicit mentalization in boys, this link is absent in girls, suggesting varied developmental pathways.

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Last Updated: May 20, 2026

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Area of Science:

Psychology
Neuroscience
Developmental Psychology

Background:

Mentalization, the ability to understand mental states, is crucial for social interaction.
Mentalization theory distinguishes between explicit and implicit capacities.
Language and sex differences may influence these mentalizing capacities.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the moderating role of sex on the relationship between language and mentalization in adolescents.
To examine differences in explicit and implicit mentalization related to language skills across sexes.

Main Methods:

Assessed explicit mentalization using the Mentalizing Stories for Adolescents.
Assessed implicit mentalization via the Reading Mind in the Eyes Task.
Evaluated language abilities with the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals in 49 adolescents (ages 14-18).

Main Results:

Sex moderated the language-explicit mentalization link; a correlation was found in boys but not girls.
No sex moderation was observed for language and implicit mentalization.
Language and implicit mentalization were uncorrelated in both sexes.

Conclusions:

Language development plays a significant role in explicit mentalization for adolescent boys.
Girls may rely less on language and more on social motivation for mentalizing, indicating different developmental trajectories.