Life changes are those events in a person's life (such as divorce or bereavement) that necessitate

a significant adjustment in various aspects of their life. As such, they can be seen as significant
sources of stress.
Life changes: the Social Readjustment Rating Scale - Holmes and Rahe (1967).
Aim/Hypothesis: To construct an instrument for measuring stress, with the prediction being that
individuals are more likely to show symptoms of illness, both physical and psychological,
following periods of stress and the greater the stress, the more serious the illness.
Procedure: The medical records of 5000 patients were examined. A list of 43 life changes,
which seemed to cluster in the months prior to the onset of patients' illnesses, was compiled. One
hundred judges were told that marriage has been assigned a baseline value of 500 and they
were to assign a number to each of the other life changes, indicating how much readjustment
would be involved relative to marriage.
The average of the numbers assigned to each life change was divided by 10 with the resulting
scores becoming the value for each change. The amount of life stress a person experiences in a
given period is measured by the total number of life changes (LCUs). These units are calculated
by adding the mean values associated with each life change that individuals have experienced
during that time.
Findings: Most life changes were judged to be less stressful than getting married, the death of a
spouse, being rated as more stressful. People with higher LCU scores for the preceding year
were more likely to experience physical illness the following year. For example, someone
scoring over 300 LCUs had an 80% chance of becoming ill, with health problems including
sudden cardiac death non-fatal heart attacks, tuberculosis, diabetes, and sports injuries.
Conclusions: Stress can be measured objectively as an LCU score. LCU scores can predict the
chances of becoming ill, physically and mentally.
Evaluation:
Jones et al. (2001) the life changes approach has generated a huge amount of research.Despite
the apparent success, however, is not without its drawbacks.
Brown (1986). Some life events (e.g. change in sleeping habits) might be themselves
manifestations of an already developing illness.
Davison et al. (1994). The life changes listed are mainly negative, so the SRRS may confuse
'change' with 'negativity'.
Penny (1996). Some life events are ambiguous. E.g. those referring to 'change in...' could be
positive or negative.

Lazarus (1999). The list of life events is incomplete. E.g. there is no death of a child and no
mention of man-made disasters.
Some of the original LCU scores may be time biased since the SRRS was developed 40 years
ago.
Forshaw (2002). It fails to take individual circumstances into account. For example, the impact
the death of a spouse will be affected by the partner's age at the time, the nature of their
relationship, and the of cause of death.
Brown (1986) pointed out that it might not be change, but rather unexpected, uncontrollable
change is stressful. When people were asked to classify undesirable life events on the SRRS,
only those classified as 'uncontrollable' were correlated with later illness.
A correlation does not indicate casuality. Someones general susceptibility to stress or their
general level of health may also be important factors.
A score for a particular life change indicates whether it is more or less stressful than other events,
but does not say anything meaningful about the nature of that particular event.
Davison et al. (2004). The study is retrospective and the data produced might be biased since the
participants were already hospitalised. Regarding this, Rahe et al., (1970) conducted a
prospective study with the aim to assess whether participants who scored highly on SRRS would
become ill.
Procedure. A military version of the SRRS was given to all the men aboard three US Navy
Cruisers - a total of over 2700 men. The men filled the questionnaire in just before a tour of duty,
noting all the life events experienced over the previous six months. On board any illness, no
matter how trivial had to be recorded by the ships medical facility. An illness score was
calculated on the basis of the number, type and severity of all illnesses recorded during the tour
of duty (about seven months).
Findings. Rahe et al. found a positive correlation between LCU score and illness score of
+0.118..
Conclusions. Rahe et al. concluded that the findings support the hypothesis that there is a
positive correlation between the LCU prior to departure and higher illness rates on board ship. It
was the overall amount of psychic energy required to deal with a life event that created the
stress provided that both positive and negative events were included in the SRRS.
Criticism. The study has a number of strengths.
It was a prospective study which means that the reporting of stress factors was not influenced.

Neither the participants nor the ships medical staff knew the records were going to be used in
the study, thus, the reporting of illness and the recording of it can be considered to have been
unaffected by any form of demand characteristics.
The crews have been exposed to the same current environmental factors, e.g. similar pathogens
and food and to have received similar health care.
The reliability and validity of the SSRS has been improved by several revisions.
Mendeles and Weinstein (1972) evaluated LCUs by using a different sample which was different
om both age and education.
Another perspective study by Gupta and Gupta (2004) supported the study in terms of both
reliability and validity by finding a correlation between life events causing stress and the
deterioration of skin disorder.
However the study also has a number of weaknesses.
The correlational coefficients were all quite low, for this reason cause and effect cannot be
inferred from the study.
The study is open to accusations of cultural bias the participants were all American and gender
bias the participants were all men. Moreover it was not a random sample.
The SRRS is a self report measure which leaves it open to all kinds of cognitive biases such a
social desirability bias man going to war may feel they should answer in a certain way.
Raphael et al., (1991) illustrates the inherent dangers of self reporting, over a 10-month period
only of the originally-reported categories reappear.
The study has ethical issues the privacy (health records) of the navy personnel was breached,
no right to withdraw and no opportunity for informed consent.
The hassles and uplifts of everyday life.
By definition, most of the 43 changes included in the SRRS aren't everyday occurrences. Kanner
et al. (1981) designed a hassles scale (comprising 117 items) and an uplifts scale (135 items).
Kanner et al. defines hassles as: the irritating, distressing demands frustrating, that to some
degree characterise with the environment. They include annoying practical problems, such as
losing things or traffic jams and fortuitous occurrences such as inclement Weather, as well as
arguments, disappointments, and financial and family concerns.
Daily uplifts are defined as positive experiences such as the joy derived from manifestations of
love, relief at hearing good news, the pleasure of a good nights rest, and so on.

In a study of 100 men and women Kanner et al. confirmed the that hassles were positively
related to undesirable psychological symptoms. They also found that hassles were a more
powerful predictor of symptoms toms than life events (as measured by SRRS). 'Divorce', for
example, may exert stress by any number of component hassles, such as cooking for oneself,
handling any matters and having to tell people about it. So, daily hassles may intervene between
major life events and health. lts the cumulative impact of these day-to-day problems that may
prove detrimental to health.
Evaluation of the hassles and uplifts scales. According to Lazarus (1999), life events (as
measured by the SSRS) are distal (remote) causes of stress. We need to know the psychological
meaning a person attaches to an environmental event, the personal significance of whats
happening (the proximal cause). This is what makes Kanner et al.s scales a more valued
approach.
Daily hassles are now broadly accepted as comparable to, if not greater than, life changes as a
significant source of stress. For example, in an Australian study (Ruthn, 1993) daily hassles were
linked to greater psychological and physical dysfunction than major negative life events.
DeLongis et al. (1982) used a life events scale and their own hassles scale to see which was the
better predictor of later health problems. They found that both the frequency and intensity of
hassles were significantly correlated with impaired overall health status and bodily symptoms.
There was no relationship between life events and health during the study, but there was one for
2 years before the study.