Also there is quite a bit of research to indicate that accuracy of autobiographical recall deteriorates quite rapidly. Are these issues widely recognized as important in interpretation of data generated by these type of tools?
I can't speak to other measures, but the pss is designed to measure global stess but is specific to events within the last two weeks meaning that it would be more prone to recency effects almost in entirety.
As a control systems physiologist I have trouble following the reasoning in stress experiments, because the experimental design is difficult to control. This is due mainly to defining stress as an input. If this is carefully done, then the statistical analysis will allow intelligent outcomes which can be reproduced by others and confirmed or otherwise. The field can then advance logically. As we live close by, I am happy to discuss further, and then issues of accuracy of recall and recency issues.
Dear Paul,
I could not find a lot of research relating to the influence of recency on self-recall. Are you familiar with any literature?
I am not. My reference to recency effects are only in loose construction and not objective term. The self-report measures I've seen (e.g., PSS etc etc) generally skip around this point of deteriorating referential memory by (a) test-retest, (b) time restricted sampling for when a trait occurred, and (c) the relative stability of many stressors for longer exposure [and thus better memory encoding]. In conjunction the argument I believe those three points would make would be that your memories are consistent enough over a given period of time after more extensive exposure that you could accurately measure the construct of global stress in the short term.
If I am recalling, Cohen suggested that the PSS had a test-rest of .85 in two days and around a .50 after 5 weeks. I believe it was around .75 around the two-week mark where you would have been asking them to look back to their initial completion point to.
I'm not sure if this information is helpful to your question, but it would suggest to me that the answer to your initial question would be 'no- it is not widely considered in this type of instrument use'
Thanks Paul,
Could a good level of test-re-test reliability simply be driven by the fact that it is an accurate measure of acute stress loads (the day of testing) - and that these will remain somewhat consistent over time?
Hi Rohan,
Not a reply to the issue you raise, but may be of interest:
Psychometric Analysis of the Ten-Item Perceived Stress Scale.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0038100
By Taylor, John M.
Psychological Assessment, Oct 27 , 2014,
best regards,
JP
I would suspect that it is and with it's decline over a few weeks for test-retest, it seems that the PSS might make a good way to measure global stress as a fluctuating thing- reacting in relative recency to events and stressors.
Rolland made a point regarding the 10 item PSS as a psychometric, I would also point to some of the shortcomings of the briefer 4 item that I've observed in my work in community samples (Ingram et al., 2014; see link below). A cautionary note- it led to a scrapping of a project because we didn't expect the difficulties. Coefficient alpha was very misleading.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/smi.2592/abstract
See also:
Intraindividual change and variability in daily stress processes: Findings from two measurement-burst diary studies
Martin J. Sliwinski, David M. Almeida, Joshua Smyth, and Robert S. Stawski
Psychol Aging. Dec 2009; 24(4): 828–840.
doi: 10.1037/a0017925
I am interested in trying to understand the strengths and weaknesses of psychometric approaches to better contextualise whether biometric/biological indicies could complement these instruments in the assessment of chronic stress.
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