A contribution to a new tool of the relationships between affects and mentalization: the Trust Story

In this work we present a new semi-projective task, that analyses jointly the mentalistic ability or theory of mind, the affective relationships and trust dimensions (both in affective terms and cognitive terms). In particular, our aims are to investigate: the development of trust in three different groups of age; the link between trust dimension and ToM ability; the link between trust dimension and attachment. The participants are 80 children divided by age into three groups: 6-year-old children; 8-years-old children; 10-years-old children. Each child individually completed a battery of tests: a false belief task; the Separation Anxiety Test and the Trust Story. The results underline the developmental trend. With regard to the link between theory of mind and trust the statistical analysis allow us to underline that the trustful profile is a crucial element account for mentalistic ability.