Mothers' reports of events causing anger differ across family relationships

Mother's reports of anger causes within the family were analyzed in terms o f the family relationships of the persons experiencing and eliciting anger and three independent components of the anger-eliciting event-Type of Cause , Focus of Anger and Temporal Specificity. Mothers' reports suggest substan tial differences (a) in anger causes across relationships, (b) depending on whether parents or children were experiencing or eliciting anger events, a nd (c) for the three independent components of the anger events. For exampl e, for type of cause, mothers' reports indicated more expectancy violations for parents' than children's anger; but more goal blockages for children t han parents' anger. Also, elicitor mattered; mothers' reports indicated mor e goal blockages elicited by parents than by children, but more expectancy violations elicited by children than by parents. These patterns are interpr eted in terms of differential power and status within the family.