Social Psychological explenations of stress

• Life events - something that affects us and causes us to have to make a adjustment, can be positive or negative.
• Time and energy spent dealing with life events is called psychic cost.
• Stress of life events are measured with SRRS, mean scores are gievn to events. People with a score >150 are 30% more likely to have a stress-related illness and people with scores >300 are 50% more likely.
• Rahe et al used the SRRS on over 2500 navy's, while on a tour of duty an illness record was kept and there was a significant postitive correlation.
• Sheldon Cohen used SRRS on 394 participants and exposed them to the common cold, a significant positie correlation was found between LCU scores and vulnerability.
• Daily hassles are day to day irritators that trigger our stress response e.g. traffic.
• Uplifts are positive experiences that combat the effects of daily hassles e.g. a good nights sleep.