Research Article

Mental State Talk Structure in Children’s Narratives: A Cluster Analysis

Table 1

Description of the coding system for mental state talk (adatpted from Bretherton and Beeghly, 1982).

CategoryDescriptionExamples

Perceptual and physiological statesTerms representing perceptual and physiological states that might influence our behavior (such as hunger and thirst) and describe how we perceive the worldBeing hungry, eating, drinking, being born, being ill, watching, listening, smelling, recognizing, feeling bad, felling hot/cold, noticing
Emotional stateTerms describing our feelings and emotionsHappy, pretty, nice, kiss, caressing, cuddle, hug, like, caring, sad, angry, annoyed, ugly, scared, crying, screaming, getting bored, worrying, complaining
Willingness stateTerms describing what we want to achieve and doWilling, can, hoping, achieving, letting, trying, looking for, ordering
Cognitive stateTerms representing what we cognitively thinkKnowing, thinking, understanding, remembering, forgetting, clever, paying attention, true, false
Moral and sociorelational stateTerms representing our moral perspective and the relationships between charactersGood, having to, reprimanding, promising, giving thanks, recommending, obeying, joking, helping, alone, becoming friends, abandoning, tricking