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The study's theoretical basis was the concepts of the central role of the self-regulatory system in mental regulation of mental states. The mental regulatory system is a structure of relations between characteristics of consciousness: representation, reflection, experiences, semantic structures, mental (subjective) experience, whereas the self-system serves as an integrator in stipulating the regulation of one's states by the structures of consciousness. The researchers used 24 techniques of diagnostics of mental structures and personality characteristics, as well as an originally developed questionnaires. In their study of mental states and their self-regulation efficiency the authors used as an example students' various educational activity: classes, workshops, and exams.
The research revealed that a high level of self-esteem and self-assessment are connected with constructive coping strategies, which contributes to the overall efficiency of the students' self-regulation of their states. The study revealed the specifics of how the components of the self-system interrelate with reflexive, meaningful structures affecting regulatory processes: students with high self-esteem achieve the maximum self-regulation efficiency if they combine a high level of meaningful-life orientations and retrospective reflection. The authors gained data that a person's psychological qualities and the self-system are connected: the res­pondents with a high level of self-concept typically have such personality traits as sociabi­lity, emotional stability, expressiveness and effective self-control. The authors found that the correlation between the structures of consciousness, indicators of regulatory processes, and personality traits are different in different situations depending on the stress: in the everyday classroom situation, the indicators of the current mental state and self-regulation efficiency are mostly connected with the self-system components, while at exams the role of the perso­nal self-actualization strengthens.

The author proposes the importance and relevance of working with primitive mental states in couples and that a failure to recognise and work with these states can lead to a therapeutic impasse. This article highlights how an understanding of such a mode of psychic experience has emerged largely from work with individual patients. Moreover, it suggests how couples presenting with such primitive mental states require the analyst to be available as an undifferentiated object. This provides a containment function that allows for psychic transformation and growth. Couples whose psychic function has been derailed to such a regression point are thus allowed to regain their usual level of functioning. This outcome in turn provides a platform for further growth which involves the capacity to work with symbolic processes. It is proposed that such understandings and ways of working with primitive mental states and their associated anxieties have a cross-cultural applicability.

This article describes the process of creating diagnostic tools aimed at assessing the degree of influence of internal and external factors, as well as key parameters included in them, on the change in a person's mental state. The main stages of the questionnaire creation and modification are described in detail. The main psychometric indicators of the questionnaire are given: results of convergent and constructive validity, assessment of the internal consistency of the questionnaire and reliability. 520 respondents took part in the testing of the questionnaire, mainly students, whose average age was 23 years. At the first stage of the questionnaire, the sample was 105 people, at the second  137, at the third stage  278. The psychometric properties of the questionnaire "Situational factors of mental states" make it possible to use it to assess the degree of influence of internal and external factors, key parameters included in them, on the change in the current mental state of a person. The practical guilt lies in the fact that on the basis of the conducted phenomenological research, the author's questionnaire "Situational factors of medical conditions" was developed, which can complement the objective picture of the study of a person's biological conditions, his personality characteristics, as well as the level of various factors of the human condition on changes in condition. The results indicate that this questionnaire is a convenient psychodiagnostic tool, does not require long time to fill out, process and has the necessary psychometric characteristics.

The development of knowledge about agents has recently been subject to intensive study, as witnessed by the burgeoning literature on children's theory of mind. This article focuses on two central issues in the literature: the early emergence and the selective impairment of understanding of mental states. Experimental studies on both normal and deviant development (in children with autism) are reviewed. It is argued that the available evidence is consistent with a theoretical position that assumes domain-specific constraints and specialized learning mechanisms in cognitive development.

AbstractMothers' mental state language in conversation with their preschool children, and children's preschool attachment security were examined for their effects on children's mental state language and expressions of emotional understanding in their conversation. Children discussed an emotionally salient event with their mothers and then relayed the event to a stranger. Compared to mothers of insecurely attached children, mothers of securely attached children used more mental state language and had children who used more mental state language with both mother and stranger, and who expressed more emotional understanding in the mother–child conversation. Maternal mental state language and attachment security made shared contributions to children's mental state language with their mothers. Maternal mental state language accounted for the effects of attachment security on children's expressions of emotional understanding in the mother–child conversation. Mothers' mental state language to their children may enhance secure attachment and foster children's understanding of mental states in self and others.

This study analysed children's Theory of Mind (ToM) as assessed by mental state talk in oral narratives. We hypothesized that the children's mental state talk in narratives has an underlying structure, with specific terms organized in clusters. Ninety-eight children attending the last year of kindergarten were asked to tell a story twice, at the beginning and at the end of the school year. Mental state talk was analysed by identifying terms and expressions referring to perceptual, physiological, emotional, willingness, cognitive, moral, and sociorelational states. The cluster analysis showed that children's mental state talk is organized in two main clusters: perceptual states and affective states. Results from the study confirm the feasibility of narratives as an outlet to inquire mental state talk and offer a more fine-grained analysis of mental state talk structure.