Transmission of emotions in the daily interactions of single-mother families

This study examines the paths of emotional transmission in one-parent, moth er-headed families. One hundred adolescents and their single mothers provid ed self-reports of their immediate experience at random times when signaled by alarm watches over I week. Time sequence analyses indicated that mother s' immediate anxiety and anger were related to subsequent anxiety and anger in adolescents, but adolescents' negative emotions were not related to sub sequent negative emotions in their mothers. The transmission of anxiety to adolescents was most evident in families in which mothers had more stress a nd employed psychological control in their parenting. It was least evident in families in which mothers spent more time alone. These findings suggest daily processes whereby distress is propagated in some families and contain ed in others.