For this discussion activity, do all of the following: First, complete the 4 questionnaires in this PDF on your own: Stress Questionnaires.pdfDownload Stress Questionnaires.pdf Follow the scoring ins

PSYC 4307, Stress

Stressed Out?

Instructions: Indicate your degree of agreement with each statement by placing a number in the blank before it. Use the following scale:

4 = never

3 = almost never

2 = sometimes

1 = fairly often

0 = very often

How often have you been upset because of something that happened unexpectedly?
How often have you felt that you were unable to control the important things in your life?
How often have you felt nervous and “stressed”?
How often have you felt confident about your ability to handle your personal problems?
How often have you felt that things were going your way?
How often have you been able to control irritations in your life?
How often have you found that you could not cope with all the things that you had to do?
How often have you felt that you were on top of things?
How often have you been angered because of things that were outside your control?
How often have you felt that difficulties were piling up so high that you could not overcome them?

Scoring Instructions:

In obtaining your total score, use the following scale to reverse the number you placed before items 4, 5, 6, and 8: o 4 = 0 o 3 = 1 o 2 = 2 o 1 = 3 o 0 = 4
Then, add the numbers in front of all 10 items.

How You Measure Up

Stress levels vary among individuals—compare your total score to the averages for different ages and gender below.

Age	Gender	Marital Status
18–29………14.2	Men……12.1	Widowed……………………......12.6
30–44………13.0	Women...13.7	Married or living with partner…..12.4
45–54………12.6		Single or never wed…………….14.1
55–64………11.9		Divorced………………………..14.7
65 and over...12.0		Separated……………………….16.6

Source: Adler, J. (1999, June 14). How stress attacks you. Newsweek, 58–63. [Scale appears on p. 63.]

Stress as a Response

Instructions: Indicate how often each of the following happens to you, either when you are experiencing stress or following exposure to a significant stressor. Use the following scale:

0 = never	3 = every few weeks
1 = once or twice a year	4 = once or more each week
2 = every few months	5 = daily
Cardiovascular symptoms	Skin symptoms
______Heart pounding	______Acne
______Heart racing or beating erratically	______Dandruff
______Cold, sweaty hands	______Perspiration
______Headaches (throbbing pain)	______Excessive dryness of skin or hair
______Subtotal	______Subtotal
Respiratory symptoms	Immunity symptoms
______Rapid, erratic, or shallow breathing	______Allergy flare-up
______Shortness of breath	______Catching colds
______Asthma attack ______Difficulty in speaking because of poor	______Catching the flu
breathing control	______Skin rash
______Subtotal	______Subtotal
Gastrointestinal symptoms	Metabolic symptoms
______Upset stomach, nausea, or vomiting	______Increased appetite
______Constipation	______Increased craving for tobacco or sweets
______Diarrhea	______Thoughts racing or difficulty sleeping
______Sharp abdominal pains	______Feelings of crawling anxiety or nervousness
______Subtotal	______Subtotal

Muscular symptoms

______Headaches (steady pain)

______Back or shoulder pains

______Muscle tremors or hands shaking

______Arthritis

______Subtotal OVERALL SYMPTOMATIC TOTAL ____________

Scoring Instructions: To score your answers, simply add up your responses first within each category to obtain subtotals for each physiological system and then across the seven subtotals to obtain an overall symptomatic total.

Total scores between 0 and 35 indicate a low level of physical stress responses and little danger to health.

Total scores between 36 and 75 are average and may indicate an increased risk of stress-related illness. Scores between 76 and 140 indicate excessive physical stress symptoms.

Source: Allen, R., & Hyde, D. (1980). Investigations in stress control. (Reprinted by permission of Burgess International Group). Minneapolis, MN: Burgess Publishing.

College Undergraduate Stress Scale

Instructions: Copy the “stress rating” number into the last column (the column labeled “Your Items) for any item that has happened to you in the last year. Then add up the number.

Event	Stress Rating	Your Items
Being raped	100
Finding out that you are HIV-positive	100
Being accused of rape	98
Death of a close friend	97
Death of a close family member	96
Contracting a sexually transmitted disease (other Than AIDS)	94
Concerns about being pregnant	91
Finals week	90
Concerns about your partner being pregnant	90
Oversleeping for an exam	89
Flunking a class	89
Having a boyfriend/girlfriend cheat on you	85
Ending a steady dating relationship	85
Serious illness in a close friend or family member	85
Financial difficulties	84
Writing a major term paper	83
Being caught cheating on a test	83
Drunk driving	82
Sense of overload in school or work	82
Two exams in one day	80
Cheating on a boyfriend/girlfriend	77
Getting married	76
Negative consequences of drinking/drug use	75
Depression or crisis in your best friend	73
Difficulties with parents	73
Talking in front of a class	72
Lack of sleep	69
Change in housing situation (hassles, moves)	69
Competing or performing in public	69
Getting in a physical fight	66
Difficulties with a roommate	66
Job changes (applying, new job, work hassles)	65
Declaring a major or concerns about future plans	65
A class you hate	62
Drinking or use of drugs	61
Confrontations with professors	60
Starting a new semester	58
Going on a first date	57
Registration	55
Maintaining a steady dating relationship	55
Commuting to campus, work, or both	54
Peer pressures	53
Being away from home for the first time	53
Getting sick	52
Concerns about your appearance	52
Getting straight A’s	51
A difficult class that you love	48
Making new friends; getting along with friends	47
Fraternity or sorority rush	47
Falling asleep in class	40
Attending an athletic event (e.g. football game)	20
TOTAL:

Note: of 12,000 U.S. college students who completed this scale, scores ranged from 182 to 2,571, with a mean score of 1,247.

Sources: Renner, M. J., & Mackin, R. S. (1998). A life stress instrument for classroom use. Teaching of Psychology, 25, 47. Vol. 25

Coping Styles

Instructions: Take a few minutes to identify the most important problem you have faced during the last year. Then, using the scale below, indicate how often you used each of the following strategies to deal with it.

0 = not at all 1 = a little 2 = occasionally 3 = fairly often

Took things a day at a time.
Got away from things for a while.
Tried to find out more about the situation.
Tried to reduce tension by drinking more.
Talked with a professional person (e.g., doctor, lawyer, clergy).
Made a promise to myself that things would be different next time.
Prepared for the worst.
Let my feelings out somehow.
Took it out on other people when I felt angry or depressed.
Prayed for guidance and/or strength.
Accepted it; nothing could be done.
Talked with spouse or another relative about the problem.
Talked with a friend about the problem.
Tried to reduce tension by taking more tranquilizing drugs.
Told myself things that helped me feel better.
Kept my feelings to myself.
Bargained or compromised to get something positive from the situation.
Tried to reduce tension by exercising more.
Tried to reduce tension by smoking more.
Tried to see the positive side of the situation.
Considered several alternatives for handling the problem.
Made a plan of action and followed it.
Went over the situation in my mind to try to understand it.

Tried to reduce tension by eating more.
Got busy with other things to keep my mind off the problem.
Drew on my past experiences.
Avoided being with people in general.
I knew what had to be done and tried harder to make things work.
Tried to step back from the situation and be more objective.
Refused to believe that it happened.
Sought help from persons or groups with similar experiences.
Tried not to act too hastily or follow my first hunch

Note (please read before scoring): As noted in the text, Richard Lazarus and his colleagues distinguish between problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping. Problem-focused coping is a coping strategy for dealing directly with a stressor, either by reducing the stressor ’s demands or increasing resources for meeting those demands. Problem-focused coping can involve an outer-directed action, such as trying to alter a situation or the behavior of another person, or it can be inner-directed, such as engaging in physical exercise, practicing meditation, or seeking social support from others in order to cope.

Research studies have shown that people are most likely to use problem-focused coping when they believe a problem is controllable and to use emotion-focused strategies when problems appear beyond the person’s control. In practice, however, people often rely on both strategies.

This questionnaire identifies 32 coping strategies, some of which are clearly emotion-focused (“Tried to reduce tension by smoking more”), and others are problem-focused (“I knew what had to be done and tried harder to make things work”). Hololan and Moos (1987), the authors of this scale, extend the problem-focused and emotion-focused distinction to include active-cognitive strategies (active efforts to construct thoughts to help cope with a problem), active-behavioral (active efforts to change a situation), and avoidance (efforts to keep a problem from conscious awareness).

Scoring Instructions:

Your score on the active-cognitive subscale is the sum of the scores for items 1, 6, 7, 10, 11, 15, 20, 21, 23, 26, and 29.
Active-behavioral is assessed by items 2, 3, 5, 8, 12, 13, 17, 18, 22, 25, 28, 31, and 32.
Avoidance is assessed by items 4, 9, 14, 16, 19, 24, 27, and 30.

Sources: Holahan, C., & Moos, R. (1987). Personal and contextual determinants of coping strategies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52(5), 946–955. Copyright © 1987 by the American Psychological Association. Reprinted with permission. Straub, R. O. (2019). Health psychology (6th ed.). New York, NY: Macmillan Learning

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