Development and Validation of the Certainty About Mental States Questionnaire (CAMSQ): A Self-Report Measure of Mentalizing Oneself and Others [post]

Sascha Müller, Leon Patrick Wendt, Johannes Zimmermann
2021 unpublished
The Certainty About Mental States Questionnaire (CAMSQ) is a self-report measure of the perceived capacity to understand mental states of the self and others (i.e., mentalizing). In two studies (total N = 1828), we developed the CAMSQ in both English and German as a two-dimensional measure of Self- and Other-Certainty, investigated associations with other measures of mentalizing, and explored relations to personality functioning and mental health. The CAMSQ performed well in terms of convergent
more » ... and discriminant validity, internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and measurement invariance across the US and Germany. The present research indicates that the CAMSQ assesses maladaptive forms of having too little or too much certainty about mental states (consistent with hypo- and hypermentalizing). A psychologically adaptive profile of perceived mentalizing capacity appears to be characterized by high Self-Certainty that exceeds Other-Certainty, suggesting an important role of imbalances between Self-Certainty and Other-Certainty (Other-Self-Discrepancy) as an aspect of personality pathology.
doi:10.31234/osf.io/jtc3s fatcat:s4shqm4moraqrjcwws7almvzhu