STRESS THEORY AND RESEARCH 47and secondary appraisals (e.g. the extent to which an event is appraised as
controllable).
Generic measures of perceived stress
The most popular global measure of stress is the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS)
developed by Cohen, Kamarck and Mermelstein (1983). This measure was
designed to evaluate the degree to which situations in general in one’s life are
appraised as being stressful. This scale asks participants to report about their
feelings and thoughts during the last monthin relation to non-specific events. For
example, in the last month, ‘how often have you been upset because of something
that happened unexpectedly’ and ‘how often have you been able to control
irritations in your life?’ Other generic measures of stress have been developed such
as the Stress Arousal Checklist (SACL; Cox and Mackay, 1985) and more recently
the Trier Inventory of Chronic Stress has been introduced (TICS) (Schulz, Schlotz
and Becker, 2011).
Event measures of stress
These types of measures aim to capture participants’ responses to significant life
events (e.g. divorce), a single acutely stressful event (e.g. examination) and daily
hassles (e.g. being late for a meeting). This may be achieved by the use of a
questionnaire or by a structured interview. These may be generic life events as in
the original Holmes and Rahe (1967) work (described later) or developed to focus
on specific groups such as children. Event measures also include assessments of
‘hassles’, minor daily stressful events or annoyances as conceptualized by the
original Hassles Scale (Kanner et al., 1981).
Cognitive appraisal measures of stress
Appraisal measures of stress are informed by the transactional model of stress
(Lazarus and Folkman, 1984). As outlined earlier, cognitive stress appraisals
are the interpretations of events in terms of their benefit or harm for the
individual and the theory posits two dimensions: primary and secondary appraisals
(Lazarus and Folkman, 1984). For example, the Appraisal of Life Events (ALE)
(Ferguson, Matthews and Cox, 1999) scale consists of three primary appraisal
scales: Threat, Challenge and Loss. The ‘Threat’ scale assesses how threatening
and anxiety-provoking the situation is; ‘Challenge’ assesses the potential for
growth and learning from the situation and ‘Loss’ how sad and depressing
the situation is.
Gartland, O’Connor and Lawton (2012) have recently developed a new Stressor
Appraisal Scale (SAS) that can be used to assess stressor appraisals in relation to
the most stressful hassle in the past 7 days and it can be used in a daily diary
format (see Gartland et al., 2014b). This new scale comprises 10 items tapping
primary appraisal and secondary appraisal.