It is important to acknowledge that our measure of reactivity is an approximation that reflects the amount by which an individual’s daily affect (physical symptoms) increases or decreases on family stressor days compared to days without family stressors (Sliwinski, Almeida, Smyth, & Stawski, 2009). Although our design prevents us from establishing a temporal link between family stressors and daily affect (physical symptoms), we operate under the assumption that the end of the day reports of affect and physical symptoms are influenced by family stressors experienced earlier in the day (Sliwinski et al., 2009).
