Wu, Ruihan;
Leow, Karen;
Yu, Nicole;
Rafter, Ciara;
Rosenbaum, Katia;
F de C Hamilton, Antonia;
White, Sarah J;
(2024)
Evaluative contexts facilitate implicit mentalizing: relation to the broader autism phenotype and mental health.
Scientific Reports
, 14
, Article 4697. 10.1038/s41598-024-55075-9.
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Abstract
One promising account for autism is implicit mentalizing difficulties. However, this account and even the existence of implicit mentalizing have been challenged because the replication results are mixed. Those unsuccessful replications may be due to the task contexts not being sufficiently evaluative. Therefore, the current study developed a more evaluative paradigm by implementing a prompt question. This was assessed in 60 non-autistic adults and compared with a non-prompt version. Additionally, parents of autistic children are thought to show a genetic liability to autistic traits and cognition and often report mental health problems, but the broader autism phenotype (BAP) is an under-researched area. Thus, we also aimed to compare 33 BAP and 26 non-BAP mothers on mentalizing abilities, autistic traits, compensation and mental health. Our results revealed that more evaluative contexts can facilitate implicit mentalizing in BAP and non-BAP populations, and thus improve task reliability and replicability. Surprisingly, BAP mothers showed better implicit mentalizing but worse mental health than non-BAP mothers, which indicates the heterogeneity in the broader autism phenotype and the need to promote BAP mothers' psychological resilience. The findings underscore the importance of contexts for implicit mentalizing and the need to profile mentalizing and mental health in BAP parents.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Evaluative contexts facilitate implicit mentalizing: relation to the broader autism phenotype and mental health |
| Location: | England |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1038/s41598-024-55075-9 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-55075-9 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| Keywords: | Female, Child, Adult, Humans, Autistic Disorder, Mental Health, Mentalization, Reproducibility of Results, Phenotype, Autism Spectrum Disorder |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10188305 |
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