A Life Stress Instrument for Classroom Use

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Abstract
Most introductory psychology textbooks describe Holmes and Rake's Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS; 1967) instrument, which generates stress scores as life change units. Although students seem willing to entertain the possibility that stressors can affect their health, the SRRS does not include many common events that act as stressors for college students and includes many items not meaningful to most college students. This article describes an instrument intended for use in classroom demonstrations, the College Undergraduate Stress Scale (CUSS), and reports a local set of norms for a population of traditional-age college students. The CUSS is useful in teaching concepts within health psychology that are associated with stress and its cumulative effects.

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