Life changes

• Life changes

  -these are not everyday events and are often major stressors. They are stressful as you have to make significant psychological adjustment to adapt to circumstances.
• Examples of life changes:

  -Marriage

  -Divorce

  -Buying/moving into a new house

  -Relative dies

  -Wedding day
• Life changes

  -The bigger the change the greater the adjustment and the associated stress. The effects of life changes are also cumulative - they add up and create more stress.

  -This applies as much to pleasant life changes as it does to negative ones.
• Measuring life changes - the social readjustment rating scale 


  -SRRS includes 43 life changes and measures stress by assigning a certain number of life change units to each item on the list.

  -Life change is a list of numbers which represents the level of stress it gives someone. E.g. a death of a spouse is rank 1st on the list.

  -The PP tick off all the life changes that has happened in previous 12 months.

  -Correlated with a measure of illness PP experienced in same period.
• Key study - Rahe et al

  -Aim to investigate the link between life changes and illness in American sailor's using SRRS.

  -Procedure: PP completed the SSRS 6 months before they went on tour duty and whilst on the tour illness was recorded using self-report.

  -Findings: found a positive correlation of +0.118 between LCU scores and illness.

  -Conclusions: more life changes experienced means the more stressed you are. LCU score is 300+ then you have an 80% likelihood of illness next year. LCU score between 150-300 then you have a 50% likelihood of illness in the next year.