AUTHOR=Cornaggia Alessia , Bianco Federica , Castelli Ilaria , Belacchi Carmen 

TITLE=Assessing metarepresentational abilities in adolescence: an exploratory study on relationships between definitional competence and theory of mind

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=15

YEAR=2024

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1456432

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1456432

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=<sec><title>Introduction</title><p>Several developmental changes occur in adolescence, particularly in the metarepresentational domain, which allows and promotes adaptive sociality. We explored the possible relationships between theory of mind (ToM) and definitional competence, both metarepresentational, beyond age and gender effects.</p></sec><sec><title>Methods</title><p>To reach our goals, we involved 75 adolescents (age range 14–19 years, <italic>M</italic> = 15.7, and <italic>SD</italic> = 1.36). ToM was measured through “The Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test” (RMET), and definitional competence was assessed through a new instrument, namely, the “Co.De. Scale”. Attention was paid to check whether results were different when considering mental states vs. non-mental states of the scale and emotional words vs. non-emotional words.</p></sec><sec><title>Results</title><p><italic>T-tests</italic> showed that older adolescents (third grade of high school) performed better than younger ones (first grade of high school) in both tasks. Only in the male group, there were no school grade differences in the ToM task. Regression analyses showed that RMET performance predicted the score of <italic>non-emotional mental states</italic> definitions and, even if marginally, of <italic>ToM word</italic> definitions. However, RMET was not a predictor of the general performance of the definitional task or <italic>emotion</italic> definitions.</p></sec><sec><title>Discussion</title><p>Connections with global adolescents’ development and possible educational implications are discussed.</p></sec>