43 common events from patients’ files and asked samples of judges to rate the amount of behavioral readjustment that each required. Death of a spouse was rated as requiring the most behavioral read- justment, 100 “life change units” on a scale rang- ing from 0 to 100; minor violations of the law had the fewest life change units, 11. Holmes and Rahe (1967) then showed that the more life change units an individual accumulated during a year’s time, the greater his or her likelihood of illness or injury.