psychology: stress in everyday life

life changes and daily hassles:
1. life changes= events in a persons life that require significant adjustment in various aspects of a persons life. therefore a significant source of stress as it disrupts normal routine of everyday life.
  1. why does it cause stress= disrupts normal routine so we have to think of how to do things on 'auto pilot' which means to use much more mental energy- called psychic energy (holmes and rahe). constantly using energy to think leaves us exhausted and less able to cope with our lives. stress is caused by our perceived ability to cope with the demands of a situation so therefore it will create stress as the bigger the change, the more adjustment needed so more energy.
  2. Holmes and Rahe- theorised a link between major life events and illnesses.
    1. developed a questionnaire called the social readjustment scale as a way to measure life changes.
      1. 43 life events were taken from 5000 patient life records. 400 participants scored the life events in terms of the readjustment needed; e.g. marriage=50.
        scores were then totalled and averaged to produce a life change unit for each life event.
    2. procedure- 2500 members of the US navy sampled. they were given the SRRS to assess how many life events they had experienced in the last 6 months and total scored were recorded.
      1. results: found a positive correlation between the hypothesis that life changes causes stress related illness.
        conclusion- experiencing more life changes increases chances of stress related illnesses
    3. evaluation of SRRS:
      1. individual differences- what is stressful for one person may not be as stressful for the other person.
      2. correlational analysis so it cannot predict a causal relationship.
      3. members of the navy do not represent the population as they may have a different life style so we cannot generalise
      4. questionnaire may lack accuracy due to social desirability- P's may not want to reveal everything.
      5. data is retrospective- validity of peoples memories of past events
2. daily hassles- minor events that arise throughout the day which can cause stress.
  1. HASSLES: Bouteyre et al: investigate relationship between daily hassles and mental health of French students during transition from school to uni.
    1. procedure: first year psychology students completed a hassles and uplift scale and depression was recorded.
    2. results: found a positive correlation between students suffering from depression and scores on the daily hassles scale
    3. conclusion- transitions has frequent daily hassles which is a risk factor for developing depression
  2. EVALUATION of daily hassles and uplifts
    1. amplification affect- alternative explanation that due to major life events, people may become more vulnerable to daily hassles as they will find higher levels of distress in small irritations
      1. accumulation affect- daily hassles cause more stress for people than major life events. persistent irritations that accumulate over the day can cause more stress
    2. research is correlational so it does not show a causal relationship between the two factors- other variables may have influenced the results.
    3. explains how daily events affect health and can accumulate and cause significant source of stress.
    4. retrospective data- participants may not remember the hassles they experience.
    5. self report questionnaires means participants may be influenced by social desirability.
3. daily uplifts: small positive experiences that counteract the stress.
  1. Gervais et al
    1. asked nurses to keep a diary for a month recording daily hassles and daily uplifts related to their job and were asked to rate their performance over the same period.
      1. results- found that increase in daily hassles decreased job performance whereas uplifts they experients counteracted the stress.

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psychology: stress in everyday life

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