The relationship between objective and subjective social stress indicators: Some Israeli findings

The present study addresses the question of whether objectively defined social stressors are subjectively perceived as stressful. This question is investigated on the aggregate level with regard to economic and security-related stress factors. The objective economic stressors considered are inflation and unemployment and the objective security-related stressors are security-related casualties and incidents. Subjective perceptions of social stress are conceived here as expressions of worry or dissatisfaction regarding the above life domains.The data regarding the ten subjective indicators included in this study were derived from continuing surveys of representative samples of the urban Israeli Jewish population during the years 1967-1985. The periods covered range from six to almost 14 years. The hypotheses of the study were generally supported by the findings. Both economic and security-related stress indicators were positively related to their subjective counterparts. However, the relationships of subjective indicators of general (unspecified) stress to the above two types of objective stressors were rather inconclusive. The implications of the findings with regard to future research on objective and subjective stress indicators are discussed.