Cognitive Appraisal Theory: Emotions Decoded
Discover how cognitive appraisal influences emotional responses to various situations.
Page Summary
An explainer of cognitive appraisal theory, Richard Lazarus's framework holding that emotions arise not from events themselves but from the meanings people assign to them relative to their goals and coping resources. It explains the two-stage process (primary appraisal of stakes and valence, secondary appraisal of coping capacity), traces the lineage through Lazarus, Smith and Ellsworth's appraisal dimensions, Roseman's causal attribution, and Scherer's component process model, and presents four case studies (exam stress, cross-cultural generalizability, grief, competitive sport) with the empirical evidence and critiques.
Contributions
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Roseman's 1991 'Appraisal determinants of discrete emotions' appeared in Cognition and Emotion, not JPSP (matches article's own reference list).
BeforeIra Roseman, publishing in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 1991
AfterIra Roseman, publishing in Cognition and Emotion in 1991
Why: Verified already correctly fixed on the live site (body content and bibliography). No mention of Roseman's journal name in faq, excerpt, or meta_description. No further action needed.
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