Life events

• life events are events that cause significant readjustment
• they are a key source of stress
• the Life Event scale has 43 items. with marriage having 50 points. A higher score meant more stress related illness
• A LE score of 150 meant 30% more likely to suffer stress related illness

  300 meant 50%
• Rahe- SRE (schedule of recent experience) 2,684 Navy. SRE before leaving and during 6-8 month tour kept record of illness.

  positive correlation between life events and illness.
• doesn't have to bad change it is the 'psychic' energy required to deal with it
• Cohen - 394 people did life event scale. then exposed to common cold those with higher life events were more risk to infection
• Cause and effect- not clear relationship
• Nuckolls- pregnant women did LE scale, 90% with high change low support experienced complication whereas only 33% if they had high support
• Rapheal- women asked about life events every month for 10 months then asked to recall them all at the end of the 10 months only 1/4 of events were on both lists
• Culture bias- mostly the same, Chinese participants put death of family member above divorce