Health psychology (option): life events, daily hassles and the Holmes and Rahe scale

Life events and the SRRS

Life events are major changes that require adjustment, pleasant or unpleasant (bereavement, divorce, marriage, moving house).

Holmes and Rahe (1967) produced the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS): 43 life events, each with a life change unit (LCU) value based on how much readjustment people rated it as needing. Death of a spouse scored highest at 100. People tick events from the past year and add up their LCUs.

Reported risk of stress-related illness in the next two years: under 150 LCUs about 30%; 150 to 299 about 50%; 300 or more about 80%.

Evidence and evaluation of life events

Rahe et al. (1970): 2,500 male US Navy sailors completed the SRRS for the previous six months; their illness was recorded during a six-month tour of duty. There was a small but significant positive correlation between LCUs and illness.

Evaluation:

• Strengths: quick, standardised, quantitative; supported by correlational studies; easy to compare people.
• Weaknesses: correlational (illness could cause life events, or a third factor both); assumes the same event affects everyone equally (divorce may be a relief for one person, devastating for another); retrospective recall of the past year may be inaccurate; ignores positive and negative quality; major events are rare.

Daily hassles

Daily hassles are the minor, everyday irritations and demands (traffic, losing things, arguments, deadlines). Uplifts are minor positive experiences.

Kanner et al. (1981) developed a 117-item Hassles Scale and a 135-item Uplifts Scale. 100 middle-class American adults (52 women, 48 men) completed them monthly for ten months. Hassles predicted anxiety and depression better than life events did; uplifts helped women but not men.

Hassles may matter because they accumulate, and major life events often create many daily hassles. But hassles scales are self-report (people who are already stressed may rate more events as hassles), and the samples are often narrow.

Worked example

Invented data: LCU scores and days of illness for 8 people. LCU: 120, 340, 210, 450, 90, 280, 160, 390. Days ill: 2, 6, 3, 9, 1, 4, 5, 7. Calculate Spearman's rs and test it at p ≤ .05 two-tailed.

1. Rank each variable: LCU ranks 2, 6, 4, 8, 1, 5, 3, 7; illness ranks 2, 6, 3, 8, 1, 4, 5, 7.
2. Σd² = 6.0.
3. rs = 1 - 6 x 6.0 / (8 x 63) = 0.929.
4. Critical value (N = 8, two-tailed, p ≤ .05) = 0.738. 0.929 ≥ 0.738, so it is a significant positive correlation (it does not show life events cause illness).

Answer: rs = 0.929, significant.

Check yourself

1. How many life events are on the SRRS?
   Show answer

   43. 43 events.

2. What is the LCU value of 'death of a spouse' on the SRRS?
   Show answer

   100. The top of the scale.

3. For the invented data, Σd² = 6.0 and N = 8. Calculate rs to 3 decimal places.
   Show answer

   0.929. 1 - 6 x 6.0 / 504 = 0.929.

4. According to the SRRS thresholds, a person with 320 LCUs in a year has about what chance of stress-related illness?
   • 30%
   • 50%
   • 100%
   • 80%
   Show answer

   80%. 300 or more: about 80%.

5. What did Kanner et al. (1981) find?
   • Life events predicted illness better than hassles
   • Daily hassles predicted anxiety and depression better than life events
   • Uplifts helped men but not women
   • Hassles had no link with well-being
   Show answer

   Daily hassles predicted anxiety and depression better than life events. Hassles were the better predictor.

6. Which is a weakness of the SRRS?
   • It is too long to complete
   • It measures cortisol
   • It has no numerical scores
   • It assumes the same event is equally stressful for everyone
   Show answer

   It assumes the same event is equally stressful for everyone. Individual differences in meaning are ignored.

7. Explain why daily hassles might be a better measure of stress than life events.
   Show answer

   Daily hassles happen frequently and build up over time, whereas major life events are rare, so hassles capture the ongoing stress most people experience; Kanner et al. found hassles predicted anxiety and depression better.. Frequency and comparison.

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Sources

• Pearson Edexcel International Advanced Subsidiary/Advanced Level in Psychology specification, Issue 6 (November 2024, first assessment January 2026)
• Holmes and Rahe (1967), The Social Readjustment Rating Scale, Journal of Psychosomatic Research 11 (PubMed)
• Pearson WPS03/01 question paper, January 2022 (formulae and critical values tables)

Last updated 8 November 2026. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.