Disparate lines of research suggest that women’s (a) emotion regulation and personality, (b) executive function and (c) sleep may be important predictors of mothers’ cry responding in part through their effects on social cognition. However, the extent to which each contributes to cry responding independently remains unknown. We examined this question in a convenience sample of 109 nulliparous undergraduate women. Women completed online surveys to assess personality and emotion dysregulation traits, then visited the lab for a testing session during which they reported on sleep the night before and reactions to videotapes of crying infants and completed computerized working memory and inhibitory control tasks under challenging noise conditions (exposure to traffic and cry sounds). Results indicate that women’s positive personality and higher working memory were associated with higher levels of infant-oriented cry processing (i.e., accurate distress detection, empathy and situational/emotional attributions about distress), which in turn was associated with higher intended responsiveness to infant crying. Emotion dysregulation and deficits in inhibitory control were associated with higher levels of self-oriented cry processing (i.e., anger, anxiety, negative and emotion minimizing attributions in response to infant distress), which in turn was associated with lower cry responsiveness. Short-term sleep deprivation was associated with lower intended responsiveness via the above path from poorer inhibitory control to heightened self-oriented cry processing. Findings suggest that sleep, emotional and cognitive factors are associated with cry processing and subsequent responsiveness independent of one another.

不同的研究方向表明，女性的 (a) 情绪调节和个性、(b) 执行功能和 (c) 睡眠可能是母亲哭泣反应的重要预测因素，部分原因是它们对社会认知的影响。然而，每个人对哭声独立反应的贡献程度仍然未知。我们在 109 名未生育的本科女性的便利样本中检查了这个问题。女性完成在线调查以评估个性和情绪失调特征，然后前往实验室进行测试，在此期间她们报告前一天晚上的睡眠情况和对哭泣婴儿录像带的反应，并在具有挑战性的噪音条件下完成计算机化的工作记忆和抑制控制任务。暴露在交通和哭声中）。结果表明，女性的积极性格和较高的工作记忆与较高水平的婴儿哭声处理相关（即准确的痛苦检测、同理心和关于痛苦的情境/情绪归因），而这反过来又与对婴儿哭声的更高预期反应相关. 情绪失调和抑制控制缺陷与更高水平的自我导向哭声处理（即，愤怒、焦虑、消极和情绪最小化对婴儿痛苦的反应归因）相关，这反过来又与较低的哭声反应相关。通过上述从较差的抑制控制到增强的自我导向哭泣处理的途径，短期睡眠剥夺与较低的预期反应性相关。研究结果表明，睡眠，