The transitional impact scale: assessing the material and psychological impact of life transitions.

The Transitional Impact Scale (TIS) advances the measurement of event cognition into the real world. The TIS was created to provide a measure of change for important life transitions, including an index of their transitional properties and magnitude. Pilot work prior to Study 1 led to the creation of a 95-item version (TIS-95). A principal components analysis of TIS-95 (n = 215) resulted in two dimensions that we rotated to a Varimax criterion and interpreted as (1) material change (e.g., "This event changed where I live") and (2) psychological change (e.g., "This event changed the way I think about things"). TIS-95 was reduced to 25 items. In Study 2, the structure of TIS-25 was replicated (n = 531) using the same method. The best 12 items were retained. TIS-12 was evaluated in two random split-half samples (n = 557 and n = 553). These samples produced essentially identical results, as assessed through factor comparison. The cumulative scales formed from items constituting each factor demonstrated good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha ranged from .79 to .86).