There are two steps along the self-report process that can lead to disconnections
between stress reports and some objective state of stress: stress appraisals are not
necessarily conscious, and people may or may not believe it is appropriate to report
feeling stress in a given situation. Furthermore, since the definition of stress has often
been imprecise, there is much room for people to misunderstand what the researcher is
expecting from them in terms of categorizing an experience as being stressful.
There are many ways to measure self-reports of stress, from simple, direct
questions—“on a scale of 1 to X, how stressed are you at this time?”—that may be
included in an interview or in diary reports, to indirect measures of stress, anxiety,
or what are believed to be causes of stress, such as life change events (e.g., divorce).
There are many published scales that are used to measure stress appraisal.
Commonly used scales include the Stress Appraisal Measure (Peacock and Wong
1990 ), the Perceived Stress Scale (Hewitt et al. 1992 ), and the Perceived Stress
Questionnaire (Levenstein et al. 1993 ).
There are also several measures that rely upon the quantification of reports of life
events (Monroe and Kelley 1997 ). Thefirst checklist of life events that has been
widely used is the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (Holmes and Rahe 1967 )
which gives a weighted score to specific instances of life changes that occur within
the past year, such as death of a spouse, losing one’s job, getting married, and so
forth. Importance is given to change per se, whether positive or negative
(Dohrenwend 1973 ), with participants checking off all instances on the checklist
that have occurred in the past year. Other versions of the scale have been used,
including those designed for specific populations, such as the student stress scale
that is designed for college students, which includes circumstances specificto
students such as problems with roommates (Clements and Turpin 1996 ).
Shorter term stimuli that are thought to induce stress are often measured by
hassles scales, including the Hassles Scale (Kanner et al. 1981 ; Chamberlain and
Zika 1990 ), that attempt to measure in a quantitative fashion the daily irritants of
life, including concerns about work, family,finances, and so forth. There are also
instruments designed to measure stress in specific populations or in specific set-
tings, with occupational stress a particular concern. Job strain, defined as a com-
bination of high job demands and low decision latitude, has been hypothesized to
increase risk for cardiovascular disease (Karasek et al. 1988 ; Johnson et al. 1996 ).
Measures of anxiety are often linked with stress. Anxiety is, in a sense, a reaction
to stress, involving feelings of fear or unease. Anxiety occurs both as astate,a
short-term reaction to some experience, and as atrait, a long-term condition that is
not related to a specific stimulus. There are several common measures of anxiety,
including the State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) which has been quite widely
used (Spielberger et al. 1983 ).
The various self-report measures of stress are moderately correlated. For
instance, one study found a significant correlation (r= 0.22,p< .05) between
scores on a hassles scale and a life events checklist (DeLongis et al. 1982 ).
Similarly, the“Women in Steady Exercise Research”(WISER) study found a
significant correlation between the Perceived Stress Scale and a life events checklist
both at baseline (r= 0.23,p< .05) and at follow-up (r= 0.36,p< .05) after a
120 D.E. Brown