Frontiers in Psychology 01 frontiersin.org Mother-infant interaction context matters for verbal and non-verbal parental mentalization: an initial portrait of associations between parental embodied mentalizing, mind-mindedness, and maternal characteristics in a structured and unstructured context Karine Gagné 1,2 *, Jean-Pascal Lemelin 2,3 and George Tarabulsy 2,4 1 School of Psychoeducation, University of Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada, 2 University Center for Research on Youth and Families (CRUJeF), Quebec, QC, Canada, 3 Department of Psychoeducation, University of Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, QC, Canada, 4 School of Psychology, Laval University, Québec, QC, Canada Introduction: Interest in studying the parental embodied mentalizing (PEM), which refers to implicit and non-verbal processes of parental mentalization, is relatively recent. Therefore, little is known about how PEM, in complementarity with the verbal parental mentalization, is associated with maternal characteristics regarding mother-infant interaction contexts. This exploratory study aimed to investigate the associations between the non-verbal and verbal dimensions of parental mentalization- PEM and mind-mindedness, respectively, - in relation to a wide spectrum of parental characteristics in different interactive mother-infant contexts (toys and no toys). Methods: Among a sample of 107 mother-infant dyads at moderate psychosocial risk, mothers’ sociodemographic information (age, education, and income), psychological characteristics (depression and anxiety), cognitions (self-efficacy and perceived maternal impact), and attitudes (overprotection and parental warmth) were assessed via self-report questionnaires when the infant was 4 and 8 months old. The PEM and mind-mindedness were evaluated through observation made during a videorecorded sequence of mother-infant interaction in a context of free play with and without toys at 8 months of age. Results: The results showed distinct associations between PEM and mind- mindedness regarding maternal characteristics: PEM was associated with the mother’s age, education, anxiety and maternal warmth, whereas mind-mindedness was related to cognitions. Both were linked to family income. Regarding mother- infant interaction contexts (toys vs. no toys), the results indicate that the capacity to verbally and non-verbally mentalize differs. Discussion: These findings shed light on distinctive associations between non-verbal and verbal parental mentalization in relation to certain maternal characteristics, and highlight that the mother-infant interaction context may play an important role in the expression of maternal mentalizing capacity. KEYWORDS parental mentalization, parental embodied mentalizing, mind-mindedness, cognition and attitudes, psychological characteristics OPEN ACCESS EDITED BY Yvette Renee Harris, Miami University, United States REVIEWED BY Anna Maria Rosso, Italian Psychoanalytic Society, Italy Marjo Flykt, University of Helsinki, Finland *CORRESPONDENCE Karine Gagné karine.gagne.6@umontreal.ca RECEIVED 28 February 2023 ACCEPTED 20 June 2023 PUBLISHED 12 July 2023 CITATION Gagné K, Lemelin J-P and Tarabulsy G (2023) Mother-infant interaction context matters for verbal and non-verbal parental mentalization: an initial portrait of associations between parental embodied mentalizing, mind- mindedness, and maternal characteristics in a structured and unstructured context. Front. Psychol. 14:1176502. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1176502 COPYRIGHT © 2023 Gagné, Lemelin and Tarabulsy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. TYPE Original Research PUBLISHED 12 July 2023 DOI 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1176502