Development of a New Measure for Assessing Mentalizing: The Multidimensional Mentalizing Questionnaire (MMQ)

Abstract

This research consists of two studies which aimed to: (1) evaluate the psychometric properties of a new self-report measure for the assessment of mentalizing, the Multidimensional Mentalizing Questionnaire (MMQ); and (2) to investigate the ability of the instrument to discriminate between community and clinical populations. A sample of 349 participants (19% male, 81% female; Mage = 38.6, SD = 15.3) filled in the MMQ and other self-report measures, in order to assess the factor structure, reliability and some aspects of construct validity of the measure. Then, a clinical sample (N = 46; 52% male and 48% female; Mage = 33.33, SD = 12.257) and a community one (N = 50; 42% male and 58% female; Mage = 38.86, SD = 16.008) filled in the MMQ, to assess its clinical sensitivity. The factorial analysis identified six principal dimensions of the measure: reflexivity, ego-strength, relational attunement, relational discomfort, distrust, and emotional dyscontrol. The MMQ showed satisfactory psychometric properties and a theoretically relevant factor structure. Furthermore, significantly greater impairment in mentalizing was found in the clinical sample in respect of the community one. The findings are discussed in terms of clinical implications, emphasizing the usefulness of the MMQ in both research and clinical practice.

Alexithymia, Dissociation, and Family Functioning in a Sample of Online Gamblers: A Moderated Mediation Study

“…Such data may have great clinical relevance, suggesting that alexithymia and dissociation should be considered in the clinical assessment of the risk of pathological gambling behaviour. Indeed, both emotional dysregulation and high levels of dissociation have frequently been associated with psychopathology and lower mental resources [74][75][76][77][78], and they could be the focus of interventions aimed at reducing both the direct and indirect effects of alexithymia on problematic online gambling [79,80]. At the same time, the results also highlighted the importance of cohesion in this indirect path.…”

Which personality traits can mitigate the impact of the pandemic? Assessment of the relationship between personality traits and traumatic events in the COVID-19 pandemic as mediated by defense mechanisms

“…In this regard, these data suggest the usefulness of intervening to increase and support the use of mature defensive styles for dealing with the stressful experiences related to COVID-19 [ 69 ]. Treatments could focus, for example, on favoring increases in mentalizing or insight levels, which were positively associated with functional defenses and inversely with maladaptive defensive mechanisms [ 70 , 71 ], as well as related to higher levels of mental health, meaningfulness, and satisfaction [ 72 – 74 ]. Finally, the psychological vulnerability of subjects with the trait of neuroticism was highlighted [ 15 , 55 ], underlining the need to place a greater focus on both intervention and preventive perspectives in different life contexts.…”

Constructing Well-Being in Organizations: First Empirical Results on Job Crafting, Personality Traits, and Insight

“…For example, by increasing the use of coping strategies appropriate to the situation [ 53 ] and being linked to the use of defense mechanisms that can be more or less functional [ 54 ], both fundamental aspects for stress management [ 55 ]. On that basis, the improvement of insight orientation can allow the acquisition of new awareness (of cognitive, emotional and social aspects) that can put jobs in a condition that facilitates job crafting and that are also linked to benefit on well-being and health: awareness, both self-oriented and towards others, is in fact associated with better functioning [ 56 ]. Furthermore, scientific literature showed that both job crafting and personality traits had significant relationships with leadership and strategic human resource management (HRM) [ 19 , 57 ].…”