Measurement of mentalizing: A systematic review and development of a construct validity framework

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Clinical Psychology
• Developmental Psychology

Background:

• Mentalizing, the capacity to understand mental states, is crucial across disciplines.
• A wide array of mentalizing measures exist due to its interdisciplinary relevance.
• Existing measures often lack explicit dimensional definitions and contextualization.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically review and identify existing text-based mentalizing measures for the general adult population.
• To develop and pilot a novel framework for classifying mentalizing dimensions and relational contexts.
• To enhance the utility and clarity of mentalizing measure selection and interpretation.

Main Methods:

• Systematic literature search of MEDLINE, PSYCHINFO, HAPI, and PSYCHTESTS.
• Development of an 18-component dimensional construct framework for mentalizing.
• Application of the framework to 57 identified text-based mentalizing measures.

Main Results:

• 57 text-based mentalizing measures were identified.
• The novel framework achieved 75% inter-rater agreement.
• No measures fully overlapped in dimensions and relational context; most focused on self or hypothetical others.

Conclusions:

• Measures of mentalizing can be effectively compared based on dimensions and relational context, improving selection utility.
• Divergent construct validity necessitates careful measure selection aligned with specific mentalizing components.
• Enhanced clarity in construct validity can resolve literature conflicts and guide new assessment development.