Perceived Stress Scale - PSS-10

Technical Manual

Script Author: Katja Borchert, Ph.D. (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Created: January 27, 2023

Last Modified: January 03, 2023 by K. Borchert (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Script Copyright © Millisecond Software, LLC

Background

This script implements Millisecond's computerized version of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10). The Perceived Stress Scale was originally suggested as a 14-item scale (PSS-14, Cohen et al, 1983) and later shortened to 10 items (Cohen & Williamson, 1988).

"Items in the PSS-10 were designed to tap how unpredictable, uncontrollable, and overloading respondents find their lives" (Cohen & Janicki-Deverts, 2012, p. 1323)

References

Cohen, S., Kamarck, T., & Mermelstein, R. (1983). A global measure of perceived stress. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 24, 386-396.

Cohen, S., & Williamson, G. (1988). Perceived stress in a probability sample of the U.S. In S. Spacapam & S. Oskamp (Eds.), The social psychology of health: Claremont Symposium on Applied Social Psychology. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Cohen, S., & Janicki-Deverts, D. (2012). Who's stressed? Distributions of psychological stress in the United States in probability samples from 1983, 2006 and 2009. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 42, 1320-1334. (This article provides NORMATIVE DATA for the PSS-10 from US samples in 1983, 2006 and 2009)

Duration

2 minute

Overview

self-report measure consisting of 10 5-point Likert Scale questions on a scale from (0 = never to 4 = very often)

Summary Data

File Name: pss_10_summary*.iqdat

Data Fields

NameDescription
inquisit.version Inquisit version number
computer.platform Device platform: win | mac |ios | android
startDate Date the session was run
startTime Time the session was run
subjectId Participant ID
groupId Group number
sessionId Session number
elapsedTime Session duration in ms
completed 0 = Test was not completed
1 = Test was completed

Raw Data

File Name: pss_10.iqdat

Data Fields

NameDescription
date Date the session was run
time Time the session was run
subject, group, session With the current subject/groupnumber/session id
build Inquisit version number
q*_response Response given (in assigned values)
Scale: 0="never" to 4= "very often")
R: reversed coded questions (if any)
q*_latency How much time (in ms) the participant spent on the surveyPage with this particular
question (the last time this particular surveyPage was visited)