Emotional reactivity to family network events provides support for the “cost of caring hypothesis”, which states that individuals experience emotional distress in response to the problems of close others, such as family (Kessler & McLeod, 1984). On a daily basis, however, other family members’ problems may not go so far as to compromise individual’s physical health because these events do not directly involve the respondent. Over the long-term, however, prolonged exposure to other family members’ problems may exhaust an individual’s coping resources, thus allowing family network events to take a physical toll. Providing needed support to family may expose individuals to additional sources stress, such as interpersonal tensions or financial worries (Dominguez & Watkins, 2003), thus undermining positive emotions. Future research should examine the effects of prolonged exposure to other family members’ problems.
