Life events inventories have been extensively used to investigate the relationship between stressful life events and the etiology of disease. In order to elucidate conceptual and methodological issues surrounding the use of these instruments, a Life Events Questionnaire was constructed and administered to 100 university students. Subjects indicated which of 40 events they had experienced and rated all events on a 20 point scale based on the amount of readjustment judged to be required by each event, both for themselves and for a hypothetical average person. Results of a three-way ANOVA indicated that in the majority of cases, neither the gender nor the experience of the rater, nor the point of reference used in making the judgment had a significant effect on the magnitude of the ratings obtained. For ratings of events which did show significant group differences, the primary finding was that normative values appear to be more consistently applied to estimates of others' reactions than to those of the raters themselves.