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Chapter 7 - Interpersonal emotion dynamics in families

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 September 2018

By
Rena L. Repetti  and
Galen D. McNeil
Edited by
Ashley K. Randall  and
Dominik Schoebi
Ashley K. Randall
Affiliation:
Arizona State University
Dominik Schoebi
Affiliation:
Université de Fribourg, Switzerland
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Summary

The duration and emotional power of family relationships ensure that emotion dynamics between parents, children, siblings and spouses or partners exert a particularly strong impact. This chapter focuses on dynamics that have been observed within and between marital and parent-child dyads. Some of the patterns –- such as mood coregulation and emotion transmission –- involve temporal covariation between two partner’s emotions. Others –- such as demand/withdraw, capitalization, emotion coaching and dismissing –- describe how emotion is shaped by the partner’s behavior. The term “spillover” is used by family researchers to describe two different emotion dynamics: one in which conflict spreads from one family dyad to another, and another dynamic in which stress-related emotional states generated outside of the home are carried back into the family where they shape emotion expression and behavior. In the long run, family members’ responses to each other’s negative and positive emotionally driven behavior influence not only the quality of family life but also the mental and physical health and development of each individual member. Recommended future research directions include distinguishing between specific emotions (e.g., anger vs. sadness), embedding intensive repeated measures into prospective longitudinal designs, and integrating direct observations of families into naturalistic research.
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Interpersonal Emotion Dynamics in Close Relationships , pp. 129 - 148
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2018

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