Adolescent Mentalizing Across Online and Offline Contexts: The Role of Perspective, Temperament, and Online Communication

Abstract

Successfully navigating the complex social demands of adolescence requires the ability to accurately infer and interpret others' mental states. However, relatively little is known about the contextual and individual factors that shape adolescent mentalizing. With peer interactions increasingly taking place online, the present study examined whether adolescents mentalize differently across online and offline communication contexts, whether these differences depend on the perspective adopted (self- vs. other-referential), and whether temperamental shyness and frequency of online communication are associated with adolescent mentalizing. Two samples of younger (13–16 years; N = 80) and older (17–19 years; N = 264) adolescents completed the Mentalizing Across Contexts Task, a novel vignette-based measure assessing mentalizing bias across online and offline peer interactions. Participants rated the likelihood of negative, neutral, and positive mental state interpretations from both self-referential (inferring how a peer would think about them) and other-referential (inferring their own thoughts about a peer) perspectives. Participants also completed measures of temperamental shyness and online communication engagement. Across both samples, adolescents’ mental state inferences varied by communicative context and perspective. Greater negative mentalizing was endorsed in offline compared with online interactions and when adolescents inferred how peers might think about them rather than their own thoughts about another peer. Higher levels of temperamental shyness were associated with greater negative mentalizing, particularly during self-referential mentalizing, whereas more frequent online communication was associated with greater negative mentalizing across both communicative context and perspective. Implications for theory, future research, and intervention are discussed.