Maternal responsiveness to infant distress: A cross-cultural investigation in Uganda and the United Kingdom.

Maternal responses are a key factor in shaping early emotional development. However, research on how mothers respond to infant emotional signals outside of Western industrialized contexts remains limited. This study provides a longitudinal, naturalistic approach to mapping cultural variation in maternal responsiveness and its effect on infant emotional outcomes. To do so, we used naturalistic video observations to assess spontaneous maternal responses to infant distress and their link with infant recovery from distress in a cross-cultural sample. Data were collected on 82 mother-infant dyads (46 female) at 3 and 6 months old, from two distinct cultural settings: Uganda and the United Kingdom. Although maternal responses were faster in the United Kingdom, infant recovery was quicker in Uganda, suggesting that culturally specific maternal strategies of responding may be more effective than simply promptness of responses in reducing distress. Further, we found changes in maternal response strategies by age and that some of these differed by site. Our findings show both cross-cultural continuity and variability in maternal responses to infant distress and broaden our understanding of how early infant-caregiver interactions shape early socioemotional development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).