Holmes and Rahe (1967)

Aims

To create a method that estimates the extent to which life events are stressors.

Procedures

Examination of American service men medical records = list of 43 life events preceding any illness.

A correlation between stress and life events.

Independent groups design – each participant was asked to rate each life event based on personal experience and the perceptions of other people’s experiences.

Sample – 179 males, 215 females = 394 from a range of educational abilities, religions and races.

Marriage given arbitrary value = 50

Life stress calculated through Life Change Units:

• 150 or less = 30% chance of illness
• 150 to 300 = 50% chance of illness
• 300 or more = 80% change of illness

Findings

• Death of a spouse judged to require x2 times readjustment from marriage
• Most life events judged to be less stressful than marriage.
• 6 events (including death of spouse, divorce, personal illness) were rated as more stressful than marriage.
• Males/females agreed on scores, also different ages, religions and educational levels.
• Less correlation between black and white participants.

Conclusions

Stress can be measured objectively as the Life change Units score, predicts the person’s chances of becoming ill following a period of stress.

Strengths:

• Holistic – the questionnaire takes into account many life events, which can be both physically and psychologically stressful.
• Usefulness – the scores can be useful to determine and predict an illness. Therefore, it may help people to prevent these.
• Standardised procedure – the questionnaire is easy to understand and requires the participants to complete the same tasks. This makes the method replicable and reliable.

Weaknesses:

• Subjective – a questionnaire is a self-report method, meaning that no scientific measures are used to calculate the possibility of illness. This makes the findings less valid and reliable.
• Social desirability – Participants may not want to give a value which is too high or too low compared to the perception of other people’s opinions; therefore, their answers may be affected by bias.
• Situational – the questionnaire suggests that life events make a person stresses, whereas it could be argued that different personalities deal with it differently and therefore the scores cannot be the same for everyone.