Emotional transmission in the daily lives of families: A new paradigm for studying family process

This collection of articles brings together studies that examine the transm ission of emotions between family members. All studies employ repeated diar y or experience-sampling data to examine daily within-person and within-fam ily variations in emotional experience. Emotional transmission is evaluated by assessing circumstances in which events or emotions in one family membe r's immediate experience show a consistent, predictive relationship to subs equent emotions or behaviors in another family member: This introduction pl aces this empirical paradigm in the context of other approaches to research , discusses research methods and statistical procedures for studying emotio nal transmission, and reviews the major findings obtained thus far in this body of research. We argue that this empirical paradigm provides a promisin g tool for understanding emotional processes within the daily ecology of fa mily and community life.