hassles affected daily interactions in families. The methods used in these labor-intensive studies generally featured precise temporal sequencing of daily stressors and subsequent interactions with family members. The development of innovative research tools, such as time diaries and experience sampling, permitted researchers to obtain detailed accounts of daily hassles and resolve problems associated with retrospective recall that limited earlier research. Perhaps the greatest benefit of this body of research is that the methods allow for a within-person examination of the day-to-day or even hourly fluctuations in everyday hassles and their links with family relationships and functioning (Almeida, Stawski, & Cichy, 2010).
Influenced by family systems and stress transmission literatures as well as ecological and psychobiological perspectives, contemporary scholars have conducted daily experience studies focusing on how one family member’s daily stress is linked to another family member’s affect or behavior, as well as the reactivity of men versus women to daily stressors, and—most recently—family members’ physiological arousal. Reed Larson’s seminal work in the area of emotional transmission across family relationships is noteworthy in its utilization of the experience sampling method (ESM; Larson & Almeida, 1999)—an approach in which family members carried preprogrammed alarm watches throughout the day for 7 consecutive days and were signaled at random moments. When signaled, family members completed brief questionnaires about their activities, companions, and emotional states at those moments. In addition, researchers have coupled multiple methods (i.e., observations of marital and parent–child interactions, daily diary self-report data of mood and workload) with self-collected saliva samples gathered by each family member at multiple time points on each day of the study (Saxbe, Repetti, & Nishina, 2008; Seltzer et al., 2009; Stawski, Cichy, Piazza, & Almeida, 2013). In combination, these time-intensive and comprehensive methods have allowed researchers to examine the complex associations between family members’ everyday hassles, their physiological arousal, and subsequent marital and family functioning in multiple contexts throughout the day.
Early work in this area was criticized for its reliance on relatively small, nonrepresentative samples (Perry-Jenkins, Newkirk, & Ghunney, 2013), the use of self-administered checklists to assess daily hassles and stressors, and the time-intensive demands placed on respondents, which often lead to attrition or missing data (Almeida, Wethington, & Kessler, 2002). To address these concerns, researchers have begun to examine the links between everyday hassles and family functioning in understudied populations, including same-sex couples, older adults, cohabiters, families with children, military families, and families of color (Cinchy, Stawski, & Almeida, 2012; Doyle & Molix, 2014; Lara-Cinisomo et al., 2012; Totenhagen, Butler, & Ridley, 2012; Totenhagen & Curran, 2011; Villeneuve et al., 2014). Informing this body of work is the Daily Inventory of Stressful Events (DISE), a semistructured telephone interview designed for use with a nationally representative sample of 1,483 adults (i.e., the National Study of Daily Experiences; Almeida, Stawski, & Cichy, 2010). The DISE methodology involves eight consecutive daily telephone interviews in which participants respond to a series of semistructured, open-ended questions about the occurrence of daily stressors across several domains, including arguments or disagreements, work or school, home life, discrimination, and issues involving close friends or relatives. Participants are asked to provide narrative descriptions of all the daily stressors they mention as well as the perceived severity of the stressors. All interviews are recorded, transcribed, and coded. Almeida’s methodology is unique in that rather than relying on participants’ self-reported appraisals of stressors, it uses investigator ratings of objective threat and severity to determine the type of threat each stressor poses (i.e., loss, danger, disappointment, frustration, and opportunity) as well as its severity. Participants’ highly specific, brief narratives provide detailed explanations about the types of events that men and women typically experience as daily hassles, and the investigator ratings reduce some of the bias associated with self-reported appraisals of stressors. Almeida’s methodology reflects scholars’ calls for studying the intensity, duration, and source of stress in understanding daily hassles (Randall & Bodenmann, 2009). In addition, interviewing participants over eight consecutive days enables researchers to examine within-person fluctuations in daily hassles and well-being over time as well as the cumulative effects of hassles rather than relying on single reports about particular days or subjective estimates of hassles over several days.
Understanding the Links between Everyday Hassles and Family Well-Being
In this section, we examine how family members manage daily hassles and discuss the links between everyday hassles and individual and family functioning. We begin with a discussion of Karney and Bradbury’s (1995) VSA model, and then use this model to frame a review of the literature on the effects of everyday hassles for families and their members.
The Vulnerability-Stress-Adaptation Model
The application of theory to the study of everyday hassles and family relationships is as varied as the methodologies used. Studies range from the atheoretical to research grounded in life course theory (e.g., Almeida & Horn, 2004; Moen, 2003), the ecological perspective (e.g., Repetti & Wood, 1997a/1997b), feminist perspectives (e.g., Daly, 2001; DeVault, 1991), emotional transmission paradigms (e.g., Larson & Almeida, 1999), more recently, biopsychosocial approaches (e.g., Saxbe et al., 2008; Slatcher, 2014), boundary theory (e.g., Boswell & Olson-Buchanan, 2007), spillover theory (e.g., Harris, Marett, & Harris, 2011), and conservation of resources theory (e.g., Harris, Harris, Carlson, & Carlson, 2015). Originally designed to provide an integrative framework for understanding the empirical research on marital quality and stability, Karney and Bradbury’s (1995) VSA model is helpful in that it parsimoniously integrates and expands principles from various social and behavioral theoretical perspectives to explain the ways in which family members’ experiences of potentially stressful events may be linked to relational outcomes. In our application of Karney and Bradbury’s model, we treat everyday hassles as stressful events and explore how they interact with enduring vulnerabilities and adaptive processes to predict family well-being. In addition, the opportunities and constraints afforded by the ecological niches that family members inhabit are viewed as central to each element of the model, and we illustrate the adapted model in Figure 2.1.
Figure 2.1 Adapted Vulnerability-Stress-Adaptation Model
Source: Karney, B. R., & Bradbury, T. N. (1995). The longitudinal course of marital quality and stability: A review of theory, method, and research. Psychological Bulletin, 118, 3–34.
At the most basic level of their model, Karney and Bradbury (1995) identified three elements that contribute to our understanding of the links between everyday hassles and family relationships. Adaptive processes, which play a central role in the model, are the ways in which individuals and families cope with everyday hassles. They are critical to our application of the model because they moderate the associations between daily hassles and family well-being. Family well-being and functioning changes as a function of the way family members behave in response to everyday hassles, and, in turn, family well-being can affect how family members appraise daily hassles. For example, some studies suggest that employed spouses and parents withdraw from family interaction following workdays characterized by interpersonal difficulties and high work demands (Repetti & Wood, 1997a; Schulz, Cowan, Cowan, & Brennan, 2004). This type of social withdrawal has short-term benefits, in that solitary time can rejuvenate spouses and parents and buffer children and partners from the transmission of negative emotions. Rejuvenated parents and protected children are then better able to deal with additional hassles as they unfold. However, the short-term benefits of emotional withdrawal for the individual and the family may be offset over time as repeated instances of withdrawal may erode feelings of closeness in the family,
