Toddlers' Emotion Socialization in Context: Associations with Mexican Heritage Cultural Values

In infancy and toddlerhood, caregivers are responsible for externally co-regulating their children's emotions and physiology through their responses to emotional arousal. These caregiving behaviors influence toddlers' emotion regulation, which impacts long-term physical, academic, cognitive, and socioemotional development. Though caregiving responses are culturally embedded, limited research has explored how cultural norms influence Mexican American mothers' emotion socialization behaviors. This study examined how mothers' Mexican heritage cultural values (i.e., familismo, respeto, religiosity, and traditional gender roles) predicted their supportive and suppressive responses to toddlers' negative emotions. Participants included 145 Mexican American mothers (M=25.85 years, SD=5.41) living with their toddlers (M=18.33 months, SD=2.10) in Northern California. Mothers reported significantly more supportive than suppressive reactions to negative emotions. Valuing familismo was associated with more supportive responses, whereas valuing respeto was associated with more suppressive responses. Traditional gender role values were associated with less supportive and more suppressive responses, with no significant differences based on the child's sex. Findings underscore the powerful role of cultural values in shaping how Mexican American mothers respond to their toddlers' emotions, which may lay the groundwork for children's long-term socioemotional development.