Sources of stress: Life changes Flashcards
What is a source of stress?
Any feature of the environment that causes stress, including factors associated with work, everyday hassles and major changes in life.
What are life changes?
Significant infrequent events in peoples lives that cause stress.
Explain Rahe’s and Holmes social readjustment rating scale.
It measures stress by alligning a number of life change units to each item on the list:
Divorce- 73LCUs
Marriage- 50 LCUs
Death of close friend- 37LCUs
Rahe suggested that people scoring under 150LCUs in a given year were likely to experience good health.
50% of people scoring between 150-300LCUs experienced illness in the next year.
80% of those 300LUCs and above experienced illness within the next year.
Explain Rahe’s research on life changes on stress.
He studied US navy personnel assigned to 3 ships.
The p’s completed a version of a scale called the schedule of recent events 6 months before a tour of duty.
One on board every illness no matter how minor had to be noted down.
They found a positive correlation between that LCU scores and the scores for illness on the ships.
Evaluation of life changes as a source of stress.
Limitations:
Individual differences- different people react to stress in different ways and the LCU scores are subjective.
Research is based off of correlational studies. Correlation does not mean causation and there could be a third variable affecting the results. Decreasing validity.
