There are at least three considerations that would suggest caution in any attempt to generalize the results of the 1991 study conducted by Novaco and colleagues. First, there are the usual unknown selection factors inherent to convenience sampling. Of the 2000 people who were invited to participate, 62% volunteered for participation. Only 30% of these met the inclusion criteria and 99 followed through with participation. Were people with greater distress about their commutes much more likely to be included in the sample? It is as least possible that commuters who have medium to high physical impedance would be more interested in the study if their subjective impedance was higher, since their frustration with their commuting may draw them to a study that they perceive as furthering solutions to what they consider a vexing problem. Alternatively, people who are most harried by their commute may tend to be less responsive to a voluntary task such as participation in a study.

Second, there may be confounding variables inherent to self-report ratings that exert effects on both subjective impedance ratings and mood ratings. For example, if an electronic engineer doesn’t like her job or her commute, she may over-report her distress as a way of expressing her strong feelings about her situation. If so, this might elevate her self-report ratings for both subjective impedance and negative home mood.

Third, the gender difference found in negative home mood may be due to women being more aware of their mood state than men. If so, then men may in fact have the same negative home mood effect as women, but may not report it as accurately.   It is also possible that societal expectations may be different for men and women in this regard. Men may be less disposed to “allow” themselves to perceive their commuting experience as having a negative effect on their mood.

Nevertheless, the demonstration of stress transfer effects from the commuting domain to the home domain are clear enough. Additionally, one very important finding related to correlations within the full sample. It was found that negative home mood was significantly correlated with average travel time to work and with average time home. If commuting stress can spill over into the home environment as a more negative mood for parents, it seems reasonable to suppose that a commute of long duration might have domain transfer effects with enough intensity to effect the children as well as the parents. For both genders, increases in negative mood at home in the evening and personal dysphoria suggests that an examination of child dysphoria as a possible spillover effect of longer commuting is warranted.

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