Four studies were conducted to develop a measure of major and daily stressful events during adolescence, the Adolescent Perceived Events Scale (APES). Study I identified an item pool of events that were drawn from the open-ended reports of adolescents. In Study 2, multidimensional scaling analysis was used to identify the salient features of stressful events that were cognitively appraised by adolescents. Study 3 examined the test-retest reliability of the APES, and Study 4 examined the concurrent validity of the measure among older adolescents. Subsequent research is summarized that has shown the APES to be significantly related to behavior problems and psychological symptomatology in a wide age range of adolescents, and directions for future research are outlined.

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Two studies of the characteristics of life events during adolescence are reported. In the first, open-ended reports of major life events and daily events were obtained from early, middle, and late adolescents. Analyses of the frequency of past events perceived as positive versus negative revealed effects for type of event (major vs. daily), age, and gender. In contrast, anticipated events were perceived similarly across age and gender. The second study examined judgments by older adolescents of the valence, type, and domain of life events. Consensus regarding these characteristics was achieved on only a small portion of events. The implications of these findings for the measurement of life events during adolescence are highlighted.

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