The Life Change Inventory: A Device for Quantifying Psychological Magnitude of Changes Experienced by College Students

Abstract

Theoretical rationale, construction, and preliminary data on psychometric properties of the Life Change Inventory are presented. It provides a convenient device for investigating psychological consequences of different degrees of readjustment in college student's lives. Initial reliability data (test-retest = .68 and .88; Cronbach Alpha = .87), and personality and mood correlates (significant positive correlations with Profile of Mood States tension, depression, anger, and vigor, and with Differential Personality Inventory insomnia, headache proneness, feelings of unreality, hypochondriasis, ideas of persecution, impulsivity, perceptual distortion, and somatic complaints), are promising. Except for Profile of Mood States vigor, these significant correlations are consistent with the idea that excessive life changes have adverse psychological consequences.