Rahe, Mahan and Arthur
Today…
This morning
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Aims and context of Rahe, recap of procedure
One on one
This afternoon
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Timed essay on Rahe procedure
Peer assessment
Findings (if time)
Questions
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What effect can stress have on our body?
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Can stress make you ill?
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What did Selye find about stress?
Context
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Psychosomatic:
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A link between psychological state and physical
health
Relationship between stress and illness
Immune system
 Cardiovascular system (heart and blood)
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Context
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Thinking back to PY1, what did
Selye find in his research in his
research on rats?
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Stress and illness
Holmes and Hawkins
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Not poverty itself which causes TB,
but the emotional effects of poverty
Context
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Hawkins (1957)
Compared TB patients to controls. Matched for age,
race etc.
 Increase in “disturbing occurrences” in the TB
patients.
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Is there a link between stressful events and
illness?
Context
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Issues with methodology
There are biases inherent in using
hospital samples and drawing
conclusions from retrospective
studies ... few attempts have been
made to put the life stress and
subsequent illness hypotheses in non
hospital populations.
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Research may lack…?
Dr Richard Rahe
Context
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Another issue
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All previous studies measure stress in different ways.
Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS)
43 critical life events based on 5000 case studies
 All about life changes, both positive and negative
 Life change units (LCU) calculated by asking 400 people
to rate them in terms of stress
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Context
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Could we expose individuals to certain stressors,
and measure their rate of illness? If not, why?
Retrospective studies: issues
Recall from past
 Investigator effects
 Sample bias
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Aims
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To overcome the methodological issues of
retrospective studies by carrying out a prospective
study with more control.
A normal population would be used (sailors)
Investigate the relationship between stressful life
events and future illness.
Procedures
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Read the procedure on pg 81
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Fill in the blank information on the sheet
Findings
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What was the relationship between Total Life
Change Units (TLCU) and illness?
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What was the correlation co-efficient for the TCLUs
six months before the cruise and illness while on
board?
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Relationship stronger for cruiser 1 and 3, and for
married men
Findings
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Decile groups
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All participants ranked in terms of their TCLUs and
put into one of ten bands, each containing 10% of
the total.
Findings
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Decile groups show a general trend, but it was
an uneven distribution.
Groups banded into “High” and “low” illness
Plot this data into a bar chart
 How clear is the relationship now?
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Look at scatter graph on pg 82. Summarise these
results
Findings and conclusions
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More findings
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Conclusions
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Read pg 91. What last piece of evidence is there?
What is the main conclusion?
Read through the rest of the
conclusions and highlight
Evaluating the methodology
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Pg 84 has some good evaluation points.
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Using the pointers on the handout, evaluate the
study
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One evaluation point each, pass on.
Alternative Evidence
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Rubin et al (1972)
Predictive relationship between SRE scores and later
illness in naval aviators in vietnam
 In other words, the higher the stress score, the more
likely they were to be ill.
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What did Vidal (2006) and
Gupta and Gupta (2004) Find?
Alternative Evidence
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Major life changes vs minor daily stress
What minor stresses (hassles) can you think of?
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See daily hassles sheet
DeLongis et al (1988)
+.59 correlation between daily hassles and next day
illness
 Two interpretations of this...
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Alternative Evidence
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Rahe found a link between stress and
illness
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Descriptive rather than explanatory
Kiecolt-Glaser et al (1984).
Blood tests taken before and during the exam
period. Levels of natural killer cells
significantly lower during the exam period.
 Suggests that short term predictable stressors
reduce immune system functioning increasing
illness.
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Alternative Evidence
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Which piece of alterative evidence for Langer and
Rodin could be used here?
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Could stress be good?
Evans et al (1994)
 sIgA levels increase for very short term stress
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Use three colours to highlight research that
supports, contradicts, or develops Rahe’s
research (some may be more than one colour).