‘The social domains organization of mentalizing processes in adolescents: a contribution to the conceptualization of personality function and dysfunction in young people’
Open Access paper from the JCPP
We propose and evaluate a contribution to the conceptualization and assessment of personality functioning based on social domains and mentalizing hypotheses. Social domains are distinct social contexts, such as with acquaintances and friends, with differentiated expectations regarding participants’ behaviours and social attributions. The capacity to organize social participation according to these expectations requires the ability, we suggest, to modulate mentalizing processes domain by domain. Drawing on evidence that social domain organization is impaired in borderline personality disorder (BPD) and that hypermentalizing, a heightened interpretation of others’ motives, thoughts or emotions, is elevated in adolescent BPD, we hypothesized that hypermentalizing levels in adolescents will vary by social domain and that elevated BPD features will be associated with impairment of this domain organization of hypermentalizing.
Authors: Jonathan Hill, Peter Fonagy, Tiziana Osel, Isabel Dziobek, Carla Sharp
First published: 01 June 2023
https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.13838
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