Hockenbury Discovering Psychology 5th txtbk

500 CHAPTER 12 Stress, Health, and CopingTable 12.2Examples of Daily HasslesDaily Hassles Scale• Concern about weight• Concern about health of family member• Not enough money for housing• Too many things to do• Misplacing or losing things• Too many interruptions• Don’t like current work duties• Traffic• Car repairs or transportation problemsCollege Daily Hassles Scale• Increased class workload• Troubling thoughts about your future• Fight with boyfriend/girlfriend• Concerns about meeting high standards• Wasting time• Computer problems• Concerns about failing a course• Concerns about moneyAcculturative Daily Hasslesfor Children• It bothers me when people force me tobe like everyone else.• Because of the group I’m in, I don’t getthe grades I deserve.• I don’t feel at home here in the UnitedStates.• People think I’m shy, when I really justhave trouble speaking English.• I think a lot about my group and itsculture.Major Life Events and StressWould the birth of a child or losingyour home in a fire both producedamaging levels of stress? Accordingto the life events approach, anyevent that required you to changeor adjust your lifestyle would producesignificant stress—whetherthe event was positive or negative,planned or unexpected. How wasthe life events approach modifiedby later research?greater adverse effects on health, especially when they’re unexpected and uncontrollable(Dohrenwend & others, 1993). In contrast, positive or desirable events aremuch less likely to affect your health adversely. Today, most researchers agree thatundesirable events are significant sources of stress but that change in itself is notnecessarily stressful.However, the Social Readjustment Rating Scale is still a useful tool for quickly measuringa person’s exposure to stressful events. Thus, it continues to be used in stress research(Lynch & others, 2005; Scully & others, 2000). Efforts have also been made torevise and update the scale so that it more fully takes into account the influences of gender,age, marital status, and other characteristics (Hobson & Delunas, 2001).Daily HasslesThat’s Not What I Ordered!What made you feel “stressed out” in the past week? Chances are it was not a majorlife event. Instead, it was probably some unexpected but minor annoyance, suchas splotching ketchup on your new white T-shirt, misplacing your keys, or gettinginto an argument with a family member.Stress researcher Richard Lazarus and his colleagues suspected that such ordinaryirritations in daily life might be an important source of stress. To explore this idea,they developed a scale measuring daily hassles—everyday occurrences that annoyand upset people (DeLongis & others, 1982; Kanner & others, 1981). The DailyHassles Scale measures the occurrence of everyday annoyances, such as losing something,getting stuck in traffic, and even being inconvenienced by lousy weather. Followingthe development of the original daily hassles scale, variations of the scale weredeveloped for different groups, including a version for children and one for collegestudents (see Table 12.2).Sources: Adapted from Blankstein & Flett, 1992;Kanner & others, 1981; Ross & others, 1999; Staats& others, 2007; Suarez-Morales & others, 2007.Arguing that “daily hassles” could be justas stress-inducing as major life events,Richard Lazarus and his colleagues constructeda 117-item Daily Hassles Scale.Later, other researchers developed daily hasslesscales for specific groups, such as parentsor caregivers. Examples of items fromthe original Daily Hassles Scale and fromscales developed for college students andfor immigrant children are shown here.Psychologist Richard Lazarus (1922–2002)Lazarus has made several influential contributionsto the study of stress and coping. Hisdefinition of stress emphasizes the importanceof cognitive appraisal in the stress response.He also demonstrated the significance ofeveryday hassles in producing stress.