Human emotional life is not merely an automatic physiological reflex to external stimulation, but an evaluative process intimately bound to personal meaning, subjective judgment, and cognitive interpretation. Appraisal theory posits that emotions are elicited and differentiated by cognitive evaluations of environmental events relative to an individual’s goals, well-being, resources, and sociocultural norms. By bridging cognition, physiological arousal, motivation, and subjective feeling, appraisal models provide the conceptual bedrock for contemporary affective science and clinical psychology.
Appraisal Theory
1. Concise Definition
Appraisal theory is a cognitive psychological framework postulating that emotions are generated through subjective evaluations (appraisals) of events, stimuli, and situations rather than directly by environmental triggers. In this paradigm, distinct emotional experiences—such as fear, anger, joy, or shame—are the direct consequence of specific configurations of evaluative judgments concerning goal relevance, congruence, accountability, coping potential, and future expectations.
Rather than conceptualizing emotions as direct, hardwired readouts of sensory stimulation, appraisal models argue that two individuals exposed to the exact same objective event can experience completely divergent emotional states based solely on how they interpret the situation’s significance to their personal well-being. Furthermore, appraisal is understood not merely as an initial, static perception, but as a recursive, dynamic, and multicomponent process that evolves continuously over time through transactional feedback loops between the organism and the environment.
2. Etymology & Linguistic Origin
The term appraisal derives historically from the late Middle English verb appraise (originally spelled appreisen), which arose around the early 15th century. This was borrowed from the Old French term aprisier (or apriser), which itself evolved from the Late Latin verb appretiare, composed of the prefix ad- (meaning “to” or “toward”) and pretium (meaning “price,” “value,” or “worth”). Thus, the etymological root literally denotes “setting a price on,” “valuing,” or “estimating the quality and worth of something.”
The concept entered the psychological lexicon formally during the mid-20th century through the pioneering work of psychologist Magda B. Arnold. In her seminal 1960 two-volume treatise Emotion and Personality, Arnold adapted the construct of cognitive appraisal to explain how perceptual input is transformed into an affective state. Arnold defined appraisal as the direct, immediate, and intuitive evaluation of an object or situation as beneficial, harmful, or indifferent. Her conceptualization rescued emotion research from radical behaviorism and established subjective evaluation as the indispensable mediator between stimulus and emotional response.
3. Pronunciation & Grammatical Form
Pronunciation: The standard International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) pronunciation for the term is /əˈpreɪ.zəl ˈθɪə.ri/ in Received Pronunciation and /əˈpreɪ.zəl ˈθiː.ə.ri/ or /əˈpreɪ.zəl ˈθɪr.i/ in General American English.
Grammatical Form: Appraisal theory is a compound noun phrase, functioning primarily as an uncountable abstract noun in academic and clinical discourse. When referring to a specific historical framework, it appears in singular form (e.g., “Lazarus’s appraisal theory”), whereas pluralization (e.g., “contemporary appraisal theories”) designates the broader family of related cognitive-evaluative models formulated by theorists such as Klaus Scherer, Ira Roseman, and Phoebe Ellsworth.
Derived grammatical forms include the transitive verb to appraise (e.g., “The patient appraised the social scenario as threatening”), the nominal gerund appraising, the adjective appraisal-based (e.g., “appraisal-based interventions in psychotherapy”), and the agentive noun appraiser.
4. Detailed Conceptual Explanation
Appraisal theory serves as a fundamental architecture for understanding how human affective experience arises from cognitive processing. At its core, the theory resolves a foundational paradox in psychology: if environmental stimuli directly produced emotional reactions, identical stimuli would inevitably provoke identical emotions across all individuals and situations. In reality, an ambiguous work evaluation may provoke defensive fury in one employee, deep depression in another, and grateful motivation in a third. Appraisal theorists assert that the subjective meaning attributed to the stimulus—not the stimulus itself—is the true proximal determinant of the emotion.
The appraisal process evaluates an encounter along a multi-dimensional matrix. These dimensions typically include goal relevance (whether an event matters to the person), goal congruence (whether the event hinders or facilitates desired outcomes), agency or accountability (who caused the event), coping potential (whether one possesses the physical, emotional, and social resources to manage the outcome), and future expectancy (whether conditions are expected to improve or deteriorate). By mapping encounters along these evaluative dimensions, the cognitive system produces a distinct profile that coordinates psychological and somatic responses.
Importantly, contemporary appraisal theorists reject the misconception that appraisal requires deliberate, slow, or conscious intellectual calculation. Instead, evaluation occurs across a hierarchical continuum spanning automatic, pre-attentive sensory checks to complex, reflective deliberation. Automatic appraisals occur within milliseconds, frequently mediated by subcortical structures like the amygdala, to detect novelty and immediate biological threat. In contrast, higher-order deliberative appraisals involve prefrontal cortical networks evaluating self-concept, social standing, moral propriety, and long-term consequences. This multi-level processing allows appraisal to balance instantaneous survival utility with nuanced social adaptability.
Crucially, appraisal theory frames emotion as an inherently recursive and transactional phenomenon. Rather than being a linear, one-way sequence from event to appraisal to emotion, emotional encounters unfold dynamically over time. When an individual appraises an event and produces an emotional response, that response alters the environment and influences the individual’s physiological state. These emergent outcomes trigger secondary appraisals and reappraisals, generating a constantly shifting feedback loop until equilibrium or behavioral resolution is reached.
5. Historical Development
Prior to the mid-20th century, emotion science was dominated by the somatic tradition initiated by the James-Lange theory, which claimed that physiological visceral changes precede and directly constitute emotional feelings, and the Cannon-Bard theory, which posited simultaneous thalamic stimulation of visceral arousal and affective sensation. These physiological models struggled to explain how humans distinguish between complex emotions exhibiting identical autonomic signatures (such as fear and anger) and failed to account for the enormous variability of human emotional responses.
The cognitive revolution in emotion theory began in 1960 when Magda Arnold formulated the first systematic appraisal model. Arnold asserted that perception produces an intuitive, non-intellectual appraisal of an object as “good” or “bad,” which instinctively pulls the organism toward or away from the object. This felt action tendency represents the essence of emotion, accompanied by physiological changes organized to facilitate appropriate approach or avoidance behaviors.
The empirical foundation was dramatically reinforced in 1962 by Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer’s landmark two-factor theory of emotion. Schachter and Singer proposed that emotion stems from a state of general physiological arousal paired with a cognitive label derived from situational context. While subsequent research disproved the idea of completely undifferentiated arousal, Schachter and Singer cemented the tenet that cognitive interpretation is an indispensable component of the affective state.
During the 1970s and 1980s, psychologist Richard Lazarus elevated appraisal theory into a comprehensive, transactional framework for understanding stress and emotion. Lazarus introduced the pivotal distinction between primary appraisal (evaluating what is at stake) and secondary appraisal (evaluating coping resources and options). In his landmark 1991 book Emotion and Adaptation, Lazarus introduced “core relational themes,” arguing that each discrete emotion represents a unique relational meaning between the person and the environment (such as “facing an uncertain existential threat” for anxiety, or “a demeaning offense against me and mine” for anger).
In the late 1980s and into the 21st century, theorists including Klaus Scherer, Craig Smith, Phoebe Ellsworth, and Ira Roseman shifted the field toward dimensional, process-oriented models. Klaus Scherer introduced the Component Process Model (CPM), which conceptualizes appraisal as a rapid sequential cascade of “Stimulus Evaluation Checks” (SECs). Scherer’s work successfully bridged cognitive emotion theory with modern computational neuroscience, dynamic systems theory, and fine-grained psychophysiological measurement.
6. Theoretical Foundations
Appraisal theory rests upon several interconnected psychological and evolutionary foundations:
Functionalist and Evolutionary Biology: Emotions are viewed not as irrational disruptions of clear thought, but as sophisticated, evolutionarily adaptive survival systems. The biological function of appraisal is to continuously scan the internal and external milieu to prepare the organism for adaptive behavioral action. When resources, mates, offspring, or physical integrity are implicated, appraisal registers significance and marshals energetic resources, coordinating autonomic, expressive, and subjective systems to achieve homeostatic balance.
Cognitive Information Processing: Appraisal theories operationalize the mind as an advanced information-processing architecture capable of rapid stimulus evaluation. Information processing in appraisal models relies on hierarchical levels: low-level sensorimotor processing (rapid, involuntary, and perceptual), schematic processing (pattern-matching against automated memory structures and emotional schemata), and conceptual processing (abstract, language-mediated, and deliberate reflection). These concurrent levels enable humans to react in milliseconds to a physical threat while simultaneously crafting intricate moral reactions to systemic injustices.
Transactional and Constructivist Paradigms: In alignment with transactional psychology, appraisal theories reject strict stimulus-response determinism. An event cannot be objectively defined as inherently “stressful,” “terrifying,” or “humorous” outside the context of the person’s subjective goals, beliefs, vulnerabilities, and cultural values. Emotions are constructed dynamically at the intersection of situational contingencies and personal meaning, creating a continuously shifting negotiation between internal schemas and external circumstances.
7. Key Components, Types & Dimensions
Appraisal theorists have identified distinct functional categories and dimensional criteria that structure the cognitive evaluation of events:
- Primary Appraisal: Lazarus’s foundational construct evaluating whether an encountered event carries personal relevance to the individual. It involves assessing:
- Goal Relevance: Does the encounter touch upon interests, commitments, or physical safety? If an event has no relevance, no emotional response occurs.
- Goal Congruence or Incongruence: Does the encounter advance or thwart the individual’s goals and desires? Congruent events provoke positive emotions, while incongruent events spark negative affect.
- Type of Ego Involvement: Which aspect of identity, self-esteem, moral values, or social position is implicated by the encounter?
- Secondary Appraisal: The concurrent assessment of one’s available resources and capabilities to manage or adapt to the situation:
- Accountability and Agency: Determines who caused the event (self, other person, or impersonal circumstances) and assigns intentionality or blame.
- Coping Potential: Evaluates whether one can actively change the situation (problem-focused coping) or modulate one’s own emotional state (emotion-focused coping).
- Future Expectancy: Evaluates whether situational factors will organically resolve, improve, or deteriorate over time.
- Sequential Stimulus Evaluation Checks (SECs): Klaus Scherer’s Component Process Model structures appraisal into four strictly sequential, rapid evaluative phases:
- Relevance Check: Evaluates novelty, suddenness, and intrinsic biological pleasantness or unpleasantness.
- Implication Check: Assesses whether the event serves or disrupts current objectives, evaluating causal attribution and outcome probability.
- Coping Potential Check: Determines the degree of control, agency, and adaptive power available to address consequences.
- Normative Significance Check: Evaluates whether the behavior or event aligns with internal self-ideals and external cultural standards.
- Core Relational Themes: Lazarus’s discrete emotional profiles summarizing relational meaning, such as:
- Anger: A demeaning offense against oneself or one’s group.
- Fear / Fright: An immediate, concrete, and overwhelming physical danger.
- Sadness: Having experienced an irrevocable, permanent loss.
- Guilt: Having violated an internalized moral standard or hurt another.
- Pride: Taking credit for a socially valued accomplishment that enhances self-esteem.
8. Examples & Illustrative Cases
The explanatory power of appraisal theory is demonstrated by examining how diverse cognitive interpretations of an identical objective scenario produce distinct emotional realities.
Case Illustration 1: The Corporate Restructuring
A multinational corporation announces a sudden corporate restructuring that eliminates a tier of middle management and transfers employees to newly formed teams. Three department managers receive the exact same corporate briefing:
- Manager A (Fear and Anxiety): Appraises the announcement as highly goal-incongruent and fraught with ambiguity. She evaluates her personal financial obligations as vulnerable and doubts her ability to adapt to a novel role (low coping potential). Her appraisal yields high goal relevance, high threat to security, and low perceived agency, producing severe anxiety and physiological hyperarousal.
- Manager B (Anger and Contempt): Appraises the corporate restructuring as an intentional breach of loyalty committed by executive leadership (other-accountability). He perceives his past hard work as disrespected and devalued, viewing the leadership as self-serving. His appraisal yields high goal incongruence combined with high perceived power and external blame, generating righteous anger and vocal resistance.
- Manager C (Hope and Excitement): Appraises the change as an opportunity to escape stagnant routines and demonstrate leadership in a modern department. She views her interpersonal skills as highly versatile (high coping potential) and anticipates rapid promotional advancement. Her appraisal yields high goal relevance, high goal congruence, and positive future expectancy, producing optimism, elevated energetic drive, and proactive engagement.
Case Illustration 2: Academic Performance
Two university students receive an identical grade of 78% (Grade C+) on a competitive midterm examination:
- Student 1: Entered the course hoping to barely pass to satisfy a distribution requirement. He appraises the grade as exceeding his expectations (goal-congruent), attributing the outcome to his targeted last-minute review (internal agency). This evaluation produces profound relief and unexpected joy.
- Student 2: Aspires to attend an elite medical school requiring a flawless academic transcript. She appraises the 78% as an existential threat to her career ambitions (severe goal incongruence) and attributes the outcome to personal intellectual inadequacy (internal blame, low stable coping potential). This evaluation induces profound shame and depressive despondency.
9. Measurement & Assessment
Quantifying subjective cognitive appraisals presents distinct methodological challenges, leading researchers to deploy a combination of retrospective self-report scales, real-time ecological evaluations, and physiological markers:
Self-Report Appraisal Questionnaires: The most widely utilized psychometric instruments include the Appraisal Dimensions Scale developed by Craig Smith and Phoebe Ellsworth, which measures participant ratings along six core dimensions: pleasantness, anticipated effort, certainty, attentional activity, responsibility, and control. Similarly, the Geneva Appraisal Questionnaire (GAQ) developed by Klaus Scherer and colleagues systematically measures how participants appraise specific emotional incidents across all parameters of the Component Process Model, including novelty, goal conduciveness, power, and moral legitimacy.
Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA): To mitigate the retrospective recall biases inherent in laboratory surveys, contemporary affective scientists utilize smartphone-based EMA protocols. Participants are prompted at pseudo-random intervals throughout their daily routines to report immediate situational occurrences, their current appraisal configurations, and their active emotional feelings. This captures dynamic appraisal-emotion transitions in naturalistic contexts with high ecological validity.
Computational and Scenario-Based Methodologies: Researchers present participants with controlled vignettes or interactive computer simulations (including virtual reality environments) where specific situational variables (such as culpability, predictability, and resource availability) are systematically manipulated. Participants’ choices, reaction latencies, and verbal assessments are recorded to isolate how subtle adjustments in appraisal dimensions determine emotional transitions.
Psychophysiological and Neuroimaging Markers: Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) studies examine neural signatures during appraisal and deliberate reappraisal tasks, identifying dynamic interactions between the amygdala, insula, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and prefrontal cortex (PFC). Simultaneously, researchers assess autonomic indices—such as skin conductance responses (SCR), facial electromyography (fEMG measuring corrugator and zygomatic muscle tension), and heart rate variability (HRV)—to measure how sequential appraisal checks correspond directly to micro-changes in somatic physiology.
10. Applications & Practical Significance
Appraisal theory serves as a practical, operational framework across multiple clinical, organizational, and technological domains:
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): The operational core of modern cognitive therapies directly descends from appraisal theory. Aaron Beck’s cognitive model and Albert Ellis’s Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) rely on the premise that psychological distress is driven not by environmental stressors, but by distorted, maladaptive appraisals (e.g., catastrophic thinking, personalization, and absolute demands). Clinical interventions instruct patients to identify their automatic primary and secondary appraisals, subject cognitive distortions to empirical reality testing, and engage in deliberate cognitive coping mechanisms such as reappraisal to reduce distress.
Organizational Psychology and Leadership: In occupational settings, appraisal theory explains divergent employee reactions to workplace stressors, leadership decisions, and corporate transitions. Management systems that enhance transparency and procedural justice maximize perceptions of controllability and fairness, shifting employee appraisals from “threat” to “challenge.” Leaders trained in appraisal dynamics can communicate organizational crises in ways that bolster employees’ secondary appraisals of collective efficacy and coping potential, preventing institutional burnout.
Affective Computing and Artificial Intelligence: Computer scientists and roboticists implement computational appraisal architectures (such as the EMA architecture and the Silas model) to create autonomous artificial agents that display believable emotional responses and social intelligence. By equipping non-player characters (NPCs) in simulations or clinical training tools with appraisal-based rule sets, the software can evaluate user interactions dynamically, generating context-appropriate nonverbal expressions, linguistic dialogue, and interactive reactions.
Health Psychology and Stress Management: Grounded in Lazarus and Folkman’s transactional model, health psychologists evaluate how chronic threat appraisals activate prolonged sympathetic-adrenomedullary (SAM) and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis responses. Interventions aimed at reframing physiological stress arousal as a functional performance aid (e.g., “stress-is-enhancing” mindset interventions) actively alter secondary appraisals, improving cardiovascular hemodynamics and immune functioning under pressure.
11. Research & Empirical Evidence
Decades of laboratory and field research have yielded extensive empirical support for the foundational premises of appraisal theory:
In a series of landmark studies during the late 1980s and early 1990s, Craig A. Smith and Phoebe C. Ellsworth systematically demonstrated that discrete emotions map consistently onto unique profiles of cognitive appraisal. Across diverse participant cohorts, emotions such as anger were universally characterized by appraisals of other-agency and high obstacle severity, pride mapped reliably to self-agency and goal-congruence, and sorrow matched perceptions of low coping potential and uncontrollable circumstance.
Klaus Scherer and the Geneva Emotion Research Group conducted cross-national investigations across more than thirty nations, revealing that the relationship between specific appraisal configurations and specific emotional categories transcends geographic and linguistic boundaries. While local cultural norms determine which events trigger specific appraisals, the appraisal-to-emotion mapping remains structurally invariant across human populations.
Neuroscience research by Kevin Ochsner, James Gross, and colleagues has illuminated the neural substrates of appraisal and reappraisal. Neuroimaging reveals that cognitive reappraisal—deliberately reinterpreting an emotionally evocative stimulus to alter its affective trajectory—consistently recruits dorsal and ventral lateral prefrontal cortices and the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex to modulate downstream activation in the amygdala. These empirical discoveries directly validate the top-down cognitive governance of affective physiology postulated by appraisal theory.
Furthermore, micro-temporal research utilizing facial electromyography has verified Scherer’s hypothesis regarding sequential stimulus evaluation checks. Studies confirm that facial muscle activation patterns reveal distinct micro-phases: individuals register stimulus novelty within approximately 100 milliseconds, followed systematically by checks for intrinsic valence (pleasantness), and subsequently by checks assessing goal conduciveness and intentionality.
12. Cultural & Cross-Cultural Considerations
While the internal architecture connecting appraisal dimensions to emotional response is biologically universal, culture profoundly shapes every phase of the appraisal cycle:
Cultural Valuation of Situational Antecedents: Culture operates as a shared lens that determines whether an objective event is appraised as goal-congruent, moral, or threatening. For instance, an overt, public display of direct criticism by a superior is widely appraised as a normative, constructive, and impersonal corrective in low-context, individualistic organizational settings (such as the Netherlands or Germany). Conversely, the exact same interaction in a high-context, collectivistic setting (such as Japan or South Korea) is appraised as a catastrophic, deeply personal violation of social face and harmonious group norms.
Independent vs. Interdependent Self-Construals: Research initiated by Hazel Markus and Shinobu Kitayama demonstrated that an individual’s cultural self-construal dictates primary appraisal configurations. In individualistic societies centered on independent self-construals, emotional appraisals focus on personal autonomy, individual achievement, and self-esteem preservation, frequently evoking ego-focused emotions like pride, personal frustration, and individual anger. In collectivistic cultures centered on interdependent self-construals, appraisals prioritize relational harmony, social obligation, and communal standing, eliciting other-focused emotions like shame, interpersonal sympathy, and communal debt.
Display Rules and Secondary Appraisals: Cultural norms also govern secondary appraisal parameters regarding coping options and expressive display rules. In cultures emphasizing emotional restraint and emotional balance (such as certain East Asian Buddhist traditions), individuals consistently appraise emotional volatility as socially disruptive, prompting rapid, automatic secondary appraisals that favor emotional suppression or internalized acceptance rather than external confrontation.
13. Criticisms, Debates & Limitations
Despite its theoretical prominence, appraisal theory has sparked substantial academic debate and sustained critique:
The Zajonc-Lazarus Debate on Primacy: The most renowned theoretical controversy in affective science erupted in the 1980s between Robert Zajonc and Richard Lazarus regarding whether affect or cognition is primary. Zajonc argued that affective reactions can occur completely independently of, and prior to, any cognitive operation, pointing to phenomena such as the mere exposure effect, subconscious visual priming, and immediate subcortical sensory-motor reflexes. Lazarus countered by broadening the definition of “cognition” to include unconscious, rapid, and pre-attentive sensory appraisal. Critics noted that broadening the definition of cognitive appraisal to include virtually any sensory processing risks rendering the construct untestable or unfalsifiable.
The Problem of Retrospective Self-Report: A prominent methodological criticism centers on the reliance on retrospective self-report questionnaires. Psychologists such as James Russell have argued that when individuals are asked to explain why they felt an emotion, they often rely on folk-psychological narratives and cultural heuristics rather than accessing genuine, unconscious causal processes. The cognitive appraisals identified after an event may represent post-hoc rationalizations used to justify an emotional reaction rather than the real-time cognitive elicitors that originally caused it.
Neglect of Somatic and Embodied Feedback: Somatic constructivists and modern proponents of the Jamesian tradition argue that appraisal theory over-intellectualizes emotion. The Theory of Constructed Emotion, championed by Lisa Feldman Barrett, argues that internal interoceptive signals (such as fluctuations in heart rate, metabolic energy, and gut activity) often precede, shape, and directly construct cognitive categories. In this view, appraisal models tend to treat the human body as an executive instrument following cognitive commands, underestimating the degree to which continuous, bottom-up physiological states drive higher-order interpretations.
14. Related Terms & Distinctions
Understanding appraisal theory requires differentiating it from closely associated psychological terms:
- Cognitive Appraisal vs. Perception: Perception refers to the fundamental neurosensory registration, organization, and identification of sensory data from the external world. Cognitive appraisal is the subsequent or concurrent evaluation of that perceived data against personal goals, biological survival, values, and well-being.
- Appraisal vs. Attribution: Attribution refers to the cognitive process of identifying the causes of past behavior or events (e.g., attributing success to ability versus luck). While causal attribution serves as a key dimension within secondary appraisal (evaluating agency and blame), appraisal encompasses a broader spectrum including immediate threat detection, goal congruence, and coping potential.
- Primary Appraisal vs. Secondary Appraisal: Primary appraisal focuses exclusively on the question: “What does this event mean for my personal stakes, goals, and well-being?” Secondary appraisal evaluates: “What resources, coping capabilities, and options do I have to handle, mitigate, or resolve this event?”
- Appraisal vs. Coping: Appraisal represents the cognitive evaluation and diagnostic meaning assigned to an encounter, whereas coping denotes the subsequent cognitive and behavioral efforts deployed to manage, endure, or alter the internal or external demands created by the appraised encounter.
- Cognitive Reappraisal vs. Expressive Suppression: Cognitive reappraisal is an antecedent-focused emotion regulation strategy that alters how an event is evaluated before an emotional response has fully crystallized. In contrast, expressive suppression is a response-focused strategy that attempts to inhibit outward physical, behavioral, and facial manifestations of an emotional state that has already formed.
15. Summary / Key Takeaways
Appraisal theory remains one of the most robust, explanatory, and influential frameworks in modern psychological science. Its core tenets can be synthesized into five fundamental insights:
- Emotions are not hardwired physiological reflexes directly elicited by objective stimuli; they are subjective affective responses generated by cognitive interpretations of environmental events.
- The divergence of emotional responses across distinct individuals—or within the same individual over time—is systematically explained by variations across core appraisal dimensions, including goal relevance, goal congruence, agency, coping potential, and future expectations.
- Appraisal operates continuously across multiple hierarchical tiers, spanning instantaneous, non-conscious, subcortical sensory evaluations to complex, language-mediated, deliberative reflections.
- The appraisal process is dynamically transactional and recursive; appraisal produces emotional responses that reshape the environment, triggering secondary reappraisals in continuous feedback loops.
- Appraisal theory provides the clinical foundation for contemporary cognitive therapies (such as CBT), offering actionable methodologies to identify and restructure maladaptive evaluative schemas to alleviate chronic emotional distress.
Ultimately, appraisal theory reveals that while humans cannot always control the objective occurrences that confront them, they possess substantial adaptive capacity to alter the emotional reality of those experiences through cognitive interpretation, contextual understanding, and deliberate psychological reframing.
References
- Arnold, M. B. (1960). Emotion and personality: Vol. 1. Psychological aspects. Columbia University Press.
- Ellsworth, P. C., & Scherer, K. R. (2003). Appraisal processes in emotion. In R. J. Davidson, K. R. Scherer, & H. H. Goldsmith (Eds.), Handbook of affective sciences (pp. 572–595). Oxford University Press.
- Lazarus, R. S. (1991). Emotion and adaptation. Oxford University Press.
- Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal, and coping. Springer Publishing Company.
- Scherer, K. R. (2009). The dynamic architecture of emotion: Evidence for the component process model. Cognition and Emotion, 23(7), 1307–1351.
- Smith, C. A., & Ellsworth, P. C. (1985). Patterns of cognitive appraisal in emotion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48(4), 813–838.