Rahe, Mahan, and Arthur (1970)

Stressful Life Events

Context

  Rosenman and Friedman (1958):   Found a link between stress and coronary heart disease.

Observed a group of patients in the waiting room called ‘Type A’ personalities.

   Impatient- tended to leap out of their seats.

Experienced higher levels of stress.

More likely to suffer from heart disease (Correlation).

Green (1954); Rahe et al. (1964)  Early studies focused on patients in hospital    Lacks ecological validity- not relevant to the effects of more typical life stressors.

Retrospective- memory about stressors.

Illness may bias perception of life stressors.

Aim

  Prospective study- looking for a correlation between stressful life events and subsequent illness.

Improve on flawed methodology of previous studies:  Instead of using a retrospective method, they measured prior exposure to stress at the start of the study, then followed the participants during their time onboard naval ships.

 Controlled environment- onboard naval ships crew are likely to experience the same conditions, stressors, infectious agents, etc…  Participants were not severely ill so more likely to be representative of daily life stressors.

Procedure- Sample



3 naval ships

 2684 naval men      Varying ranks: apprentice to high ranking naval officers with 30 yrs experience Avg. age: 22.3 yrs 2/3rds high school graduates Represented 90-97% of each ship’s crew Fell by less than 10% due to transfer off-ship

Procedure- Method

 SRE (Schedule of Recent Experiences) questionnaire taken.

  Assess stressful life events experienced over 4 consecutive 6mnth periods before their deployment onboard.

Each stressful experience is assigned a ‘life change unit’ (LCU) weighting that indicates severity of stress.

Life Events

Death of spouse Divorce Jail Term

LCU

100 73 63

Procedure- Method

  Onboard  Any illnesses recorded by ship’s medical facility   Analysis- excluded illnesses believed to be faked to shirk duties and any with reports of pre-existing medical conditions.

Produced an illness criterion of the number, type and severity of illnesses.

All participants and medical personnel were unaware of the aim of the study.

Findings

 Only significant correlation was between the LCU total for the last 6mnth period prior to departure and illness onboard.

 Used only the last 6mnth total for further analysis.

 Divided the crew into ten bands, from lowest LCU scores to highest, representing a 10 th of participants each.

LCU Band

1 5 10

Mean Illness rate

1.434

1.498

2.049

  One of the ships showed smaller differences than the other two and obscured results.

Significant differences were only seen at opposing ends of the scale.

Findings Cont.

 To overcome this the grouping was changed to combine some bands…

LCU Bands Included in Group

1 and 2 3,4, and 5 6,7, and 8 9 and 10

Mean Illness rate

1.405

1.541

1.676

2.066

 Current stressors onboard may have obscured effects of previous life stressors. The ships showing the greatest correlations both had the easiest missions.

Conclusion

 When the pre-departure life changes are low so are on-board illness rates.

 Masked by stressful onboard experiences which increase the illness rate of the whole crew.

 Link stronger for men over 21 and married men.

Evaluation- Strengths

     Prospective- reports of stress not affected by illness.

 More valid.

Controlled for bias  Participants unaware their illness rates were being tested.

 Medical staff also unaware so would not have recorded illness any differently.

Choice of sample  Experience of crew onboard ship is largely consistent.

 All incidents were reported in the same way.

 Not unusual for crew to report even minor illness.

Large, representative sample  Different ranks, levels of education, and ages Replicated on different samples (Holmes and Rahe, 1967)  Generalises well.

 Highly reliable.

Evaluation- Weaknesses

     

Low correlation score (r=0.118).

 Results significant due to large sample.

Correlation does not show causation!

SRE self-report measure

 Socially desirable answers, e.g minor violations of the law

Unrepresentative sample

 Occupation- seamen more resilient to stress?

  Gender- women have different coping strategies for dealing with stress.

Culture- differ in responses to stress Does not take

individual differences

into account  Do all people experience divorce as highly stressful even if they didn’t like their partner?

Ethics

 Lack of informed consent for medical records to be used.

Past Exam Questions

Section A

1.

Outline the procedures of Rahe, Mahan & Arthur’s (1970) research ‘Prediction of near-future health change from subjects’

preceding life changes’. [12]

2.

Outline the procedures of Rahe, Mahan & Arthur’s (1970) research ‘Prediction of near-future health change from subjects’

preceding life changes’. [12]

Section B

1.

With reference to alternative evidence, critically assess Rahe, Mahan and Arthur’s (1970) research ‘Prediction of near-future

health change from subjects’ preceding life changes’. [12].

Test yourself

 Try this online version of the SRRS test: http://www.stresstips.com/lifeevents.htm