Sources Of Stress: Life Changes And SRRS Flashcards
What are life changes, where do they come from, and how are they dealt with?
. Changes caused by events that require a major transition in some aspects of an individuals life.
. The changes can be a result of positive or negative events, but both involve change
. We require a certain level of psychological adjustment to adapt to these life changes
How do life changes relate to stress?
The psychological adjustment needed to adapt to these changes takes a lot of mental strain away from you and can expend this psychic energy, causes stress which can then lead to illness
How have life changes been standardised?
Holmes and Raye (1967) developed the social readjustment ratings scale (SRRS) which contains 43 life events that constitute ‘life changes’ and psychological readjustment
- each event has a standardised measure in life change units (LCU’s)
What was the aim of Rahe et al (1970)?
To investigate whether or not life changes increase the risk of developing illnesses and whether there is a relationship between stress and illness that creates this risk for developing illness.
Outline the procedure in Rahe et al 1970?
. 2664 male sample size from American navy and marine personnel.
- they were studied for 6 months
. Had to fill in SRE (adapted SRRS) to record life changing experiences from previous six months
. Participants had to go on a 6 month tour of duty, where a record was kept of any of the illnesses reported
How were the findings of the Raye et al (1970) study calculated?
Health score and SRE score created so that a correlational analysis of these two co-variables could be carried out to try and identify a relationship between life changes and illness
How was the SRRS adapted for the Raye et al study to be more specific to the sample?
Used a version called the Schedule of Recent Experiences (SRE).
- it was further adapted to be specifically relevant to military experiences, such as including a life event for being selected for promotion.
What were the findings of Raye et al (1970)?
. Statistically significant positive correlation between LCU score and illness score of +0.118 (may not seem a strong correlation but it is as there was a big sample size)
. The men who scored low in SRE scores also had low levels of illness at sea (backs up correlation)
. It is the psychological adjustment in these life events that are important in creating stress, as both positive and negative events were used in the SRE.
What can be said about the fact that the SRE and illness scores weren’t perfectly correlated?
There must be other factors influencing the illness of the marines and navy soldiers
What was strange about the time period that the participants in Rahe et al (1970) had to record their life changing experiences over?
Only recorded previous six months when the standard time to measure is a year
