Life changes scaling for the 1990s.

Three decades ago, results from a proportionate scaling study of life change events was published in this journal. The events, listed by rank order of their mean life change values, comprised the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS). Ten years later, 42 of the 43 original events were rescaled. In this second study, an additional 44 events were added to the original list. In the present report, the original plus the later-developed events were scaled once again by persons chosen to closely approximate subjects enrolled in the initial study. Comparing the average life change intensity scores across 30 years, a 45% increase in mean values was seen. These recently derived life change magnitudes, for both the original list of events plus the later-developed events, provide values appropriate for use in the 1990s. In the original study, effects of subjects' demographic characteristics were noted briefly in a table. In the present investigation, varying influences of gender, age, marital status, and education were explored in more detail. Several significant differences were discovered, with gender showing a very pronounced influence on scaling results. Discussion of these results included composition requirements for a life changes questionnaire.