Parental Reflective Functioning, Life Satisfaction and Sense of Community among Parents

Abstract

Parental reflective function is a vital mental ability of a parent which has great impact on effective parenting and positive child development. The present study aims to examine the correlation of Parental reflective function with life satisfaction and sense of community, and to ascertain the effects of level of education, type of family and gender on Parental reflective function. A total of 302 participants (151 Fathers and 151 Mothers) belonging to different Naga tribes of Nagaland participated using convenience sampling method. Parental reflective functioning questionnaire, Satisfaction with Life Scale and Sense of Community Scale were used for the study.Majority of the parents scored low to average categories on Pre mentalizing modes, indicative of adaptive reflective functioning. In the Interest and curiosity in mental states dimension, majority of the participants showed hypermentalization indicative of excessive desire and intend to know everything about the child’s mental states that can be intrusive and hence maladaptive. Result showed Pre mentalizing modes dimension had significant relationship with life satisfaction where, as life satisfaction increases, there was an increase in mentalization ability among parents. ANOVA showed a significant effect of education on pre mentalizing modes, where parents having higher level of education were able to well recognize the mental states of their children. Parents living in nuclear families showed significantly lower levels of pre mentalizing modes which denotes relatively more adaptive mentalization. The present study did not find any significant difference between fathers and mothers in parental reflective function.