Predicting psychological mindedness from personality style and attachment security

The aim of this study was to increase the construct validity of the Psychological Mindedness Scale (PM Scale) by investigating its relationship to well-established measures of personality style (NEO Five-Factor Inventory) and attachment security (Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment). Personality and attachment variables functioned as differential predictors of psychological mindedness (PM). Openness to Experience emerged as the best predictor of PM, followed by Extraversion, Neuroticism (inversely related to PM), and Attachment to Peers. Neither Attachment to Mother nor Attachment to Father predicted PM. The results of this study indicate that PM is related positively to healthy, rather than pathological, personal and interpersonal constructs. (C) 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.