Abstract
To date, there is only scarce evidence for a considerable association of subjective and objective stress measures, which might be attributable to method bias (e.g., confounding) and/or asynchrony of their temporal changes. To validate different subjective stress measures by a physiological measure of long-term stress (hair cortisol concentrations; HCC), 37 heterosexual couples (N = 74) completed a 12-week internet-based assessment protocol comprised of a weekly hassle scale (WHS; once per week), a perceived stress scale (PSS; once per month), and a chronic stress scale (TICS; once after three months). Partners provided vicarious stress ratings. When averaged across time, self-reported WHS significantly predicted HCC (r = 0.27), whereas the PSS and TICS did not (r < 0.22). Dynamic factor analysis (i.e., state-space modelling) confirmed that WHS was the most valid indicator of subjective stress, explaining up to 16% of the variance in HCC (r = 0.37) with a time lag of ~4 weeks. This temporally delayed effect of subjective stress is consistent with the presumed retrospective character of HCC, but also suggests that the majority of variance in hair cortisol is attributable to other causes than subjective stress such as individual disposition to display increased adrenocortical activity.
Highlights
In their psychophysiological stress concept, Koolhaas and colleagues[1] define stress as anticipated or perceived inability to successfully cope with unknown, unpredictable, and/or uncontrollable situations[2,3]
We investigated to what extent the different measures of subjective stress (WHSoccur, Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), Trier Inventory of Chronic Stress (TICS)) reflected the same covariance as a function of informant perspective
When subjective measures were averaged across time, only the self-reported occurrence of weekly hassles (WHSoccur) was considerably associated with HCC, whereas the PSS or the TICS score were not[29,38]
Summary
In their psychophysiological stress concept, Koolhaas and colleagues[1] define stress as anticipated or perceived inability to successfully cope with unknown, unpredictable, and/or uncontrollable situations[2,3]. Each of the two stress components does not exclusively indicate stress, but concurrently reflects residual trait influences to varying extents In this regard, the respective advantages and limitations of subjective and objective stress measures are briefly summarized below, highlighting why these measures do not necessarily predict stress-sensitive developmental and psychological health outcomes[2]. The remarkably large associations between these confounding traits and stress measures (r’s > 0.5) have often been interpreted as supportive of the convergent validity of different subjective stress measures These findings simultaneously question the discriminant validity of subjective stress assessment because the majority of variance is not attributable to stressful properties of the situation. Similar to the missing data on different informant perspectives, researchers and practitioners are still lacking information about the presumed gain in validity when they rely on such stress assessment protocols
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