The study evaluated differences in the judged upsettingness and frequency of occurrence of 22 stressful life events among 503 fourth- to sixth-grade, urban and suburban school children. Children first judged the upsettingness of each event for age peers. Next, they indicated which events they had experienced personally and rated their personal level of upset with each event experienced. Except for the items, "school suspension" and "being sent to the principal," on which boys exceeded girls, there were no sex differences in events experienced. Girls, however, judged stressful events to be markedly more upsetting than boys, both cognitively and experientially. Urban children experienced more stressful events than suburban children and judged them, experientially, to be more upsetting.
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