Stress – Life Changes and the Social Readjustment Rating Scale

- Holmes and Rahe designed in 1967 - list of things that would be a change you'd need to adjust to; gave it to hundreds of men and women of all ages/backgrounds. asked them to order them according to how much they'd affect their life to make \"life change units\"

- can be used over varying time periods, commonly over the last 2 years

+ broad, covers most things. not just a snapshot of stress in one week; takes accumulation over time period into account + very controlled, standardised test for all - vague, too broad

- 50 male volunteers had oral examinations and assessed life events stress with the Life Experience Survey - significant correlation; more severe and widespread with more stress

+ ecologically valid - other factors not considered e.g. poor health, smoking, drugs

- 2500 male American soldiers filled in SRRS for the past 6 months. score recorded and health monitered for 6 month duty tour. - positive correlation of +0.0118 between scores and illness - mean age was 22.3 years, range of backgrounds. 10% original sample lost. married men more likely to develop illness than young single sailors

+ large sample + ecologically valid, real life - poor generalisability, only certain profression - self report may be unreliable