The Role of Appraisal and Emotion in Coping and Adaptation

Abstract

There is a puzzling bifurcation in the scientific literatures concerned with psychological stress, coping, and emotion. Robust, but largely separate, literatures have developed to focus on appraisal, stress, coping, and adaptation, on the one hand, and on appraisal and emotion, on the other. Although the topics touched upon in these literatures are highly overlapping, the two literatures appear to have developed largely independently, and cross-references between them are rare. In our own work, we have contributed to the literatures on both emotion and psychological stress and coping. However, we have long subscribed to the type of unified theoretical framework that Lazarus envisioned, and we believe that such a framework provides a much more powerful perspective for studying issues of adaptation than the two seemingly separate literatures that currently exist. In the present chapter we make the case for adopting a unified theoretical framework concerned with appraisal, emotion, coping, and adaptation. After providing an overview of psychological stress and coping theory, we consider the appraisal theory approach to studying emotion. We discuss some of the basic theoretical assumptions underlying this approach, and then describe a set of specific appraisal models of emotion that we have helped develop and test. In doing so, we illustrate how the development of these emotion models has been heavily dependent upon stress and coping theory. We then consider how current stress and coping theory might be informed by the advances we have described within emotion theory, and conclude by briefly considering some of the key benefits we believe a unified theoretical perspective has to offer the study both of emotion and of coping and adaptation.

Full text

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There is a puzzling bifurcation in the scientifi c literatures
concerned with psychological str ess, coping, and emotion.
Robust, but largely separate, literatures have developed to
focus on appraisal, stress, coping, and adaptation, on the
one hand (e.g., Compas et al., 2006; Folkman & Lazarus,
1980; Lazarus, 1966; Lefebvre et al., 1999; Moskowitz,
Hult, Bussolari, & Acree, 2009; Rasmussen, Wrosch,
Scheier, & Carver, 2006; Taylor et al., 1992; Yi, Smith, &
Vitaliano, 2005), and on appraisal and emotion, on the
other (e.g., Frij da, 1986, 1993; Lazarus, 1968, 1991; Ortony,
Clore, & Collins, 1988; Roseman, 2001; Roseman & Smith,
2001; Scherer, 2001; Smith & Ellsworth, 1985; Smith &
Lazarus, 1990). Although the topics touched upon in
these literatures are highly overlapping, the two litera-
tures appear to have developed largely independently,
and cross-references between them are rare.
This is especially puzzling because: (1) both litera-
tures prominently share a common theoretical frame-
work, appraisal theory; (2) the same individual, Richard
Lazarus, was highly infl uential in the development of
both (e.g., Lazarus, 1966, 1968, 1991; Lazarus & Folkman,
1984; Smith & Lazarus, 1990); and (3) in a number of his
writings, Lazarus (1990, 1993a, 1993b, 1999, 2001) strongly
urged the development of a unifi ed theoretical perspec-
tive, arguing that “emotion” and “stress” were alternative
conceptualizations of the same construct, and that replac-
ing the construct of “stress” with that of “emotion” would
greatly enrich the study of coping and adaptation.
In our own work, we have contributed to the litera-
tures on both emotion (e.g., Smith & Ellsworth, 1985;
Smith & Kirby, 2009b; Smith & Lazarus, 1990, 1993) and
psychological stress and coping (e.g., Smith & Wallston,
1992, 1996; Smith, Wallston, & Dwyer, 2003; Walker,
Smith, Garber, & Claar, 2005, 2007; Walker, Smith, Garber,
& Van Slyke, 1997; Wright & Kirby, 2003). However, we
have long subscribed to the type of unifi ed theoretical
framework that Lazarus envisioned, and we believe that
such a framework provides a much more powerful per-
spective for studying issues of adaptation than the two
seemingly separate literatures that currently exist.
In the present chapter we make the case for adopt-
ing a unifi ed theoretical framework concerned with
appraisal, emotion, coping, and adaptation. A er pro-
viding an overview of psychological stress and coping
theory, we consider the appraisal theory approach to
studying emotion. We discuss some of the basic theo-
retical assumptions underlying this approach, and then
describe a set of specifi c appraisal models of emotion that
we have helped develop and test (e.g., Smith & Kirby,
2009b; Smith & Lazarus, 1990). In doing so, we illus-
trate how the development of these emotion models has
been heavily dependent upon stress and coping theory.
We then consider how current stress and coping theory
might be informed by the advances we have described
within emotion theory, and conclude by briefl y consider-
ing some of the key benefi ts we believe a unifi ed theoreti-
cal perspective has to off er the study both of emotion and
of coping and adaptation.
AN OVERVIEW OF STRESS AND
COPING THEORY
STRESS
Undoubtedly, the most infl uential theoretical perspective
concerning psychological stress and coping has been that
advanced by Lazarus and colleagues (e.g., Lazarus, 1966;
Lazarus & Folkman., 1984; Lazarus & Launier, 1978).
This perspective, which explicitly grew out of an eff ort
to understand individual diff erences in stress and coping
(cf. Lazarus, 2001; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), is inherently
relational. A prim ary focus of this perspec tive is on the psy-
chological stress response, and a fundamental theoretical
assumption is that psychological stress is neither a simple
refl ection of the properties of the individual’s situation or
circumstances, nor a simple function of the individual’s
personal characteristics. Instead, psychological stress is a
function of the individual’s circumstances considered in
relation to the individual’s personal characteristics.
More specifi cally, Lazarus and Folkman (1984, p. 19)
defi ne psychological stress as: “a particular relation-
ship between the person and the environment that is
appraised by the person as taxing or exceeding his or
her resources and endangering his or her well-being.”
Central to this defi nition is the idea that the psychological
stress response is based on an evaluation or “appraisal”
by the person of what the person’s circumstances imply
The Role of Appraisal and Emotion in
Coping and Adaptation
Craig A. Smith and Leslie D. Kirby
SECTION III: PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESSES
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2 ■ III: Psychological Processes
for his or her well-being. Thus, appraisal is a central con-
struct in this conceptualization of stress, so much so, that
the entire theoretical approach has become known as
“ap p r a i s a l theor y.”
TYPES OF APPRAISAL
As conceptualized by Lazarus and Folkman (1984, p. 31):
“Cognitive appraisal can be most readily understood as
the process of categorizing an encounter, and its various
facets, with respect to its signifi cance for well-being.” In
delineating this categorization process, Lazarus (1966),
Lazarus and Folkman (1984), and Lazarus and Launier
(1978) identifi ed two major classes of appraisal: primary
appraisal, which is an evaluation of what is at stake in
the encounter, or as Lazarus and Folkman (1984, p. 31)
describe it: “Am I in trouble or being benefi  ed, now or
in the future, and in what way?”; and secondary appraisal,
which is an evaluation of options and resources for cop-
ing with a stressful encounter, or as Lazarus and Folkman
(1984, p. 31) describe it: “What if anything can be done
about it?”1
Lazarus and Folkman (1984) further defi ne three
major potential outcomes of primary appraisal, which
provide an initial classifi cation of the implications for
adaptation of the person’s circumstances: They can be
appraised as irrelevant to his or her personal well-being if
the situation does not concern the person’s needs or goals;
they can be appraised as benign/positive if the situation is
appraised as preserving or enhancing the person’s well-
being (or in other words, the person’s needs or goals are
implicated in the situation in a positive way); or they can
be appraised as stressful if the person’s needs or goals are
implicated in the situation in a way that taxes or exceeds
the person’s resources.
The appraisal of one’s circumstances as stressful is
what produces a psychological stress response, which
in turn mobilizes the person to respond to the stress-
eliciting situation through coping. Thus, it is under condi-
tions appraised as stressful that secondary appraisals of
coping resources and options become especially relevant.
Lazarus and Folkman (1984) further identify three sub-
types of stressful appraisals, which provide a more fi ne-
grained categorization of the nature of stress-eliciting
conditions: harm/loss, threat, and challenge. Appraisals
of harm/loss refl ect situations in which the person has
already sustained some sort of damage, be it through
injury, illness, loss of self-esteem, or some other setback
to one’s goals and pursuits. Both threat and challenge
are more future-oriented. However, in threat, the focus
is on the potential in the situation for future harm or loss,
whereas in challenge, the focus is on the potential for
gain or growth in the situation.
Several things should be noted about this con-
ceptualization. First, as Lazarus and Folkman (1984)
have argued, the labeling of the two major subtypes
of appraisal as “primary” and “secondary” has proven
troublesome because these terms are o en mistakenly
interpreted as implying either that these appraisals occur
in a fi xed sequence, with primary appraisals preceding
secondary appraisals in time; or that primary appraisal
is more important for understanding stress. Neither
of these implications was ever intended by these labels
(Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Instead, primary appraisal
has been considered “primary” because it is through this
type of appraisal that it is determined whether one’s cir-
cumstances are appraised as stressful, and thus whether
secondary appraisals are relevant, as they are only rel-
evant under stressful conditions However, when condi-
tions are appraised as stressful, secondary appraisals are
considered to be as important to stress and coping as are
primary appraisals.
Second, there are some potentially problematic
ambiguities and logical inconsistencies in the above for-
mulation. For one, the meaning of the phrase “taxing
or exceeding” one’s resources in the defi nition of psy-
chological stress is somewhat unclear. How much of a
demand must be placed on one’s resources for them to
be considered “taxed?” Our sense from reading the lit-
erature is that o en this defi nition is interpreted too
conservatively, such that stress is seen as arising only
under rather extreme conditions in which the situa-
tional demands exceed resources. Similarly, the phrase
“endangering his or her well-being” may also be overly
restrictive, as this aspect of the defi nition would seem
to preclude stress resulting from challenge appraisals
in which the focus is on potential personal growth and
gain. Not only is challenge-related stress important in
Lazarus and Folkman’s (1984) own formulation, but the
distinction between harm- and threat-related stress on
the one hand, and challenge-related stress on the other,
accords with the distinction between distress (negative
stress) versus eustress (positive stress) advanced by Selye
(1974) in his highly infl uential physiological conception
of stress. Thus, a defi nition that seems to preclude chal-
lenge-related stress is highly troublesome. Finally, there
is ambiguity as to whether the three subtypes of stress-
producing appraisals—harm/loss, thr eat, and challenge—
are defi ned purely by primary appraisal, or by diff erent
combinations of both primary and secondary appraisals.
Lazarus and Folkman (1984) seem to imply that these
subtypes of “stress” are defi ned solely through primary
1 It should be noted that Lazarus and colleagues (Lazarus &
Folkman, 1984; Laza rus & Launier, 1978) o en disc uss a third appraisal
construct, that of reappraisal. It is very easy to mistakenly assume that
reappraisal represents a third type of appraisal that is qualitatively
distinct from either primary or secondary appraisal. It is not. Instead,
the reappraisal const ruct was introduced to emphasize the fact that the
psychological stress process unfolds over time (Lazarus & Folkman,
1984; Lazarus & Lau nier, 1978), and that as it unfolds the person repeat-
edly appraises his or her circumstances. As the terms of the person’s
relationship to his or her circumstances change, the appraisals will
change, and with them the person’s subjective response and coping
eff orts. However, as the appraisals are repeated over time, their con-
tents are still comprised of primary and secondary appraisals.
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The Role of Appraisal and Emotion in Coping and Adaptation ■ 3
that coping eff orts should not be confounded with the
outcome or eff ectiveness of those eff orts. This is in con-
trast to lay usage of the term, in which to say that some-
one “is coping” o en implies that they are doing well in
managing a diffi cult situation. Instead, a key theoretical
assumption that Lazarus and Folkman (1984) advance is
that no form of coping is in herently benefi cial to adaptive
outcomes. Instead, they argue that every form of coping
can be eff ective or adaptive under certain circumstances
but also can be ineff ective or maladaptive under others.
For instance, Lazarus (1983), has made a compelling case
that denial, considered by many to be an unambiguously
maladaptive form of coping, can be highly adaptive under
certain circumstances (as one example, when a person is
confronted with news that is simply too traumatic to be
processed all at once, such as receiving a diagnosis of a
terminal illness). In a similar manner, Rasmussen et al.
(2006) have argued that persisting in active a empts to
achieve a goal, considered by many to be the epitome of
adaptive coping, can be highly maladaptive if the goal is,
in fact, unobtainable. Rather than including eff ectiveness
as part of the defi nition of coping, Lazarus and Folkman
(1984) argue that coping be defi ned as the eff orts to man-
age stressful situations, whether or not those eff orts are
eff ective, and that part of the research agenda in study-
ing coping is to identify and describe the conditions
under which various forms of coping are adaptive versus
maladaptive.
In describing coping, La zarus and Folkman (1984) and
Folkman and Lazarus (1980) have diff erentiated between
two basic functions, corresponding to two diff erent types
of coping: Problem-focused coping refers to “the manage-
ment or alteration of the person–environment relation-
ship that is the source of stress,” whereas emotion-focused
coping refers to “the regulation of stressfu l emotions” that
arise in response to the problem (Folkman & Lazarus,
1980, p. 223).
As originally conceptualized, problem-focused cop-
ing was described as being broader than problem-solving
a empts that involve acting on the situation to alter it to
reduce its problematic nature. Although subsuming such
problem-solving strategies, problem-focused coping was
also proposed to include more intrapersonal strategies
that would reduce the problem through motivational and
cognitive changes, such as changing one’s level of aspi-
ration, developing new standards of behavior, reducing
one’s degree of investment in the situation, and the like
(Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Emotion-focused coping was
described as consisting primarily of a number of cogni-
tive processes directed at reducing emotional distress,
including avoidance, minimization, reappraisal of the sit-
uation in a more positive manner without really changing
it, and the like. However, it was also proposed that some-
times individuals might deliberately engage in strategies
directed at increasing distress, such as self-blame or mag-
nifi cation of the problem. In making this proposal, it was
noted that some individuals might seek to heighten their
appraisal, and they have been clearly interpreted by
others as implying this (e.g., Tomaka, Blascovich, Kelsey,
& Lei en, 1993). However this assumption causes some
logical problems for the model, as will be discussed in the
following text. All three of these issues will be addressed
in our consideration of appraisal as it has developed in
the context of emotion theory, and for now we simply
want to highlight their existence.
It should also be noted that relatively li le is said in
this theoretical formulation about the nature of secondary
appraisal, or about the person or situational factors that
infl uence appraisal. Evaluation of one’s potential control
over the stressful person–environment relationship is
mentioned as one important form of secondary appraisal
(Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), and Lazarus and Folkman
(1984, p. 36) note that challenge as opposed to threat
appraisals are especially likely when the person has a
sense of personal control over the transaction.2 In accord
with this, ability and self-effi cacy beliefs (e.g., Bandura,
1982) are cited as important antecedents of appraisal.
Existential beliefs, “such as faith in God, fate, or some
natural order in the Universe” (Lazarus & Folkman 1984,
p. 77), have a lso bee n suggest ed as relevant to appraisa l in
that they help people to ascribe meaning to their lives. In
addition, motivational commitments, which include the
person’s goals and values, and represent things that the
person holds to be important (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984),
have been identifi ed as important antecedents of primary
appraisals, as they help determine what is at stake in any
given encounter. On the situational side, several formal
properties of events, including their novelty, predict-
ability, uncertainty, imminence, duration, and ambigu-
ity, have been identifi ed as likely relevant to appraisal
(Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). However, the specifi c ways
in which these situation factors contribute to particular
appraisals have not been well characterized.
COPING
As implied by the phrase “stress and coping theory,” in
addition to stress and appraisal, coping is the third major
construct in this theoretical approach. It is also the con-
struct within this theoretical formulation that has been
subject to the most theoretical development and empirical
examination. As defi ned by Lazarus and Folkman (1984,
p. 141), coping consists of “constantly changing cognitive
and behavioral eff orts to manage specifi c external and/or
internal demands that are appraised as taxing or exceed-
ing the resources of the person.” One key aspect of this
defi nition that Lazarus and Folkman (1984) highlight is
2 It s h o ul d b e n o t e d t h a t t h is a s s e r t io n , t ha t c on t r o l, a s a co m p on e n t
of secondary appraisal, helps diff erentiate between threat and chal-
lenge appraisals, adds to the unclarity, discussed above, as to whether
such challenge appraisals are conceptualized as primary appraisals or
a combination of both primary and secondary appraisals.
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4 ■ III: Psychological Processes
engagement coping emphasizing a second mode of reg-
ulating the stressful transaction itself—changing oneself
to be er fi t the demands of the situation. Interestingly, in
both conceptualizations, what one approach considers to
be the second major type of coping, the other approach
considers to be a facet of its fi rst type of coping. Thus,
in the conceptualization of Lazarus and Folkman (1984),
accommodative strategies such as changing one’s level
of aspiration, or of adopting new standards of behavior,
are considered to be facets of problem-focused coping,
whereas in the conceptualization of Compas et al. (2001,
2006) eff orts at emotion regulation are considered to be
forms of primary-control engagement coping. A further
diff erence between the two conceptualizations is that
Compas et al. (2001, 2006) propose a third major type of
coping, disengagement coping, which includes strategies
such as denial and wishful thinking that Lazarus and
Folkman (1984) would subsume under emotion-focused
coping. Our consideration of the advantages of a uni-
fi ed conceptualization of emotion, stress, and coping (see
below) will off er a principled means for selecting among
these alternative models of coping.
The models described above a empt to diff erentiate
coping in terms of a few broad, overarching c ategories that
are taken to represent major coping functions (Compas
et al., 2001; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). However, as sug-
gested by the foregoing discussion, each major mode of
coping subsumes a number of dist inct strategies a person
might enact in a empting to manage a stressful situation,
including planning and problem solving, use of humor,
positive reinterpretation, acceptance, distraction, denial,
seeking social support, qui ing, and so forth. Although
early research tended to examine coping in terms of the
broad overarching categories (e.g., Brown, Nicassio, &
Wallston, 1989; Folkman & Lazarus, 1980), there has been
increasing recognition that not all the specifi c strategies
subsumed by the same higher-order coping construct are
interchangeable (e.g., Jensen, Turner, & Romano, 1992),
and there has been a movement toward studying the
implications for adaptation of more specifi c coping strate-
gies underlying the broad strategies. Accordingly, a num-
ber of coping inventories have been developed that allow
the study of these more specifi c coping strategies in the
general context of coping with life stress (e.g., The Ways
of Coping Scale [Folkman & Lazarus, 1980; Folkman,
Lazarus, Dunkel-Sche er, Delongis, & Gruen, 1986], The
COPE [Car ver, Scheier, & Weint raub, 1989], The Responses
to Stress Questionnaire [Connor-Smith et al., 2001]), and
in the more specifi c context of coping with pain (e.g.,
The Chronic Pain Coping Inventory [Jensen et al., 1995],
The Pain Response Inventory [Walker et al., 1997], The
Vanderbilt Multidimensional Pain Coping Inventory
[Smith, Wallston, Dwyer, & Dowdy, 1997].
Research using these instruments has begun to
reveal much regarding the relation of coping to adapta-
tive outcomes, including both health outcomes and
psychological adjustment. Much of this research has
distress to facilitate a subsequent sense of relief, whereas
others might try to increase their distress to help moti-
vate them to contend with the problem (i.e., to motivate
problem-focused coping; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984).
This conceptualization of coping has been supple-
mented by alternative conceptualizations, including
active versus passive coping (Brown & Nicassio, 1987), and
cognitive versus behavioral coping (Jensen, Turner, Romano,
& Strom, 1995), among others. One especially important
alternative has been proposed by Compas and colleagues
(e.g., Compas, Connor-Smith, Saltzman, Thomsen, &
Wadsworth, 2001; Compas et al., 2006; Connor-Smith,
Compas, Wadsworth, Thomsen, & Saltzman, 2000).
In conceptualizing coping, they build on a distinc-
tion between primary and secondary control advanced by
Rothbaum, Weisz, and Snyder (1982). As suggested by the
main title of their seminal article, “Changing the world
and changing the self,” Rothbaum et al. (1982) diff eren-
tiate between two diff erent ways of exerting control over
one’s circumstances: Primary control represents eff orts
to act on the situation to bring it more in line with one’s
wishes or desires, whereas secondary control repre-
sents eff orts to alter oneself to be more in line with the
demands of the situation. Compas and colleagues (e.g.,
Compas et al., 2001; Connor-Smith et al., 2000) use this
distinction to defi ne what they describe as two distinct
modes of engagement coping, representing active a empts
to manage the stressful situation: Primary-control engage-
ment coping represents eff orts to change the sit uation, and
includes such strategies as problem solving, and, inter-
estingly, eff orts at emotion regulation; Secondary-control
engagement coping represents eff orts to change aspects of
oneself to accommodate to the situation, and includes
such strategies as positive thinking, cognitive restructur-
ing, acceptance, and distraction (Compas et al., 2006). In
addition, they propose a third major mode of coping, dis-
engagement coping, which represents eff orts to avoid or
distance oneself from the source of stress, and includes
such strategies as denial, avoidance, and wishful t hinking
(Compas et al., 2006). Walker et al. (1997) have proposed a
very similar tripartite conceptualization of coping, diff er-
entiating among active, passive, and accommodative coping,
in which active and accommodative coping correspond
closely to primary- and secondary-control engagement
coping, respectively, and passive coping corresponds
closely to disengagement coping.
A comparison of these major conceptualizations of
coping indicates considerable overlap among the con-
structs of problem-focused coping, active coping, and
primary-control engagement coping. At the core of each
of these constructs are eff orts toward problem solving,
in which the person a empts to act on his or her circum-
stances to bring them more in line with his or her goals
or desires. There is far less agreement on the nature of the
second major dimension of coping, with emotion-focused
c o pi n g pl a c i n g a n e m p ha s i s o n e m o t io n - r eg u l a t i on e ff orts,
and both accommodative coping and secondary-control
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The Role of Appraisal and Emotion in Coping and Adaptation ■ 5
be una ainable. Very clearly, it is important to take into
account the context in which one is coping when exam-
ining the contributions of coping to adaptive outcomes.
However, context-specifi city is very diffi cult to exam-
ine at the purely dispositional level (but see Moskowitz
et al., 2009, for an example of a meta- analysis that does
so). Thus, it remains important to increase the degree to
which coping is studied in a more situated, context-spe-
cifi c manner in which coping and outcomes associated
with individual incidents are examined.
Second, the major focus of most stress and coping
research conducted to date has been on the relation-
ships between coping and adaptive outcomes such as
physical health and psychological adjustment. In line
with their relative theoretical neglect, alluded to above,
both appraisal and its dispositional and situational
antecedents have not yet been extensively examined in
the context of coping. In what has been examined, the
fi ndings have been consistent with theory. For instance,
both optimism (e.g., Rasmussen et al., 2006; Taylor
et al., 1992) and self-effi cacy (e.g., Lefebvre et al., 1999)
have been implicated as important antecedents of cop-
ing that, at the dispositional level, tend to promote var-
ious forms of engagement coping, and to inhibit various
forms of disengagement coping. This is consistent with
theoretical propositions (e.g., Folkman, 1984; Lazarus &
Folkman, 1984) hypothesizing that these sorts of dispo-
sitional variables should promote appraisals of personal
control, which in turn should be associated with higher
levels of problem-focused coping and lower levels of
emotion-focused coping. However, to our knowledge,
the role of control-related appraisals mediating the rela-
tionship between these dispositional antecedents and
coping behavior has not yet been explicitly examined. In
addition, the range of potential dispositional and situa-
tional antecedents of appraisal and coping has not been
extended much beyond these two constructs (for an
exception, see Walker et al., 2005).
Notably, these two limitations to the study of stress
and coping from an appraisal perspective are ones that
have been fi rmly addressed in research directed toward
developing and testing appraisal theories of emotion
(e.g., Roseman, 1984, 1991; Smith & Ellsworth, 1985;
Scherer, 1984, 1997; Smith & Lazarus, 1990, 1993). Within
the appraisal approach to emotion there has been a con-
certed eff ort to describe the appraisals hypothesized to
elicit diff erent emotions in considerable detail, and then
to examine the relationships between appraisal and emo-
tion in highly situated, context-specifi c ways. There has
been considerably less focus on how the emotions, once
elicited, infl uence behavior, including coping activity,
or on the linkages between emotions and adaptive out-
comes. Thus, the development of appraisal-related stress
and coping theory on the one hand, and appraisal-related
emotion theory on the other, have been highly comple-
mentary. We turn now to a consideration of the appraisal
approach to emotion, with an eye toward highlighting
focused on coping and adjustment at the dispositional
level, and has revealed reliable links between chronic
or habitual styles of reacting to stress in certain ways to
long-term indictors of mental and physical well-being.
Perhaps the clearest, most consistent fi nding has been
that the chronic/habitual use of strategies correspond-
ing to disengagement or passive coping is reliably asso-
ciated with negative outcomes. This applies to coping
both with psychosocial stressors (e.g., Yi et al., 2005) and
health problems including rheumatoid arthritis (e.g.,
Smith et al., 2003), HIV/AIDS (e.g., Moskowitz et al., 2009;
Taylor et al., 1992), and chronic pain (e.g., Compas et al.,
2006; Walker et al., 2005).
Identifying strategies that are as consistently related
to positive outcomes has been more diffi cult, and null
fi ndings involving both active or primary-control coping
and accommodative or secondary-control coping have
been more common than ones involving disengagement
or avoidant coping (cf. Compas et al., 2001; Smith et al.,
2003). Nonetheless, there are clear indications that, at least
within certain contexts, both active/primary-control cop-
ing (e.g., Moskowitz et al., 2009; Yi et al., 2005) and accom-
modative/secondary-control coping (Compas et al., 2006;
Walker et al., 2005) are associated with positive outcomes
including both emotional well-being and physical health
outcomes (e.g., Compas et al., 2006; Moskowitz et al., 2009;
Walker et al., 2005).
These fi ndings are characterized by a number of lim-
itations, many of which have been discussed extensively
elsewhere (Coyne & Go lieb, 1996; Coyne & Racioppo,
2000). We would like to highlight two. First, the focus
on the dispositional level, which has dominated coping
research to date, necessarily obscures the potential con-
text-sensitivity of these infl uences. From relatively early
on in the study of coping (e.g., Folkman & Lazarus, 1980;
Folkman et al., 1986), there have been clear indications
that problem-focused, or primary-control coping strate-
gies are more likely to be enacted in situations in which
individuals believe they have some ability to alter the
terms of the stressful person–environment relationship,
whereas emotion-focused or secondary-control coping
strategies are more likely in situations in which individu-
als do not feel they have this ability. These associations
likely refl ect context-specifi city in coping eff ectiveness,
such that the strategies are more effi cacious under the
conditions in which they are most likely to be enacted.
Moreover, as already noted, there are clear indications
that even the s trateg ies that have b een dem ons tra ted to be
highly deleterious when employed habitually can repre-
sent eff ective coping under certain circumscribed condi-
tions. For instance, Lazarus (1983) has outlined a number
of conditions under which denial is likely to be a highly
effi cacious short-term coping strategy, although these pro-
posals still await empirical verifi cation; and Rasmussen
et al. (2006) have proposed and empirically demonstrated
that disengagement from one’s goals, a form of avoidant
coping, can be highly adaptive when those goals prove to
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6 ■ III: Psychological Processes
1990). It should be noted, however, that from the outset
it is evident from a careful reading of his writings that
Lazarus viewed his work on emotion and on stress and
coping to be highly interrelated.
Within emotion theory, the appraisal construct
proved to be very useful for explaining the antecedents
of emotion, and by the mid 1980s research on appraisal
theories of emotion had begun to fl ourish (e.g., Frij da,
Kuipers, & ter Schure, 1989; Roseman, 1984, 1991; Scherer,
1984; Smith & Ellsworth, 1985), with the result that
appraisal theory has become the dominant perspective
for understanding emotion elicitation and diff erentia-
tion. Here, we would like to focus on the development
and testing of two distinct types of appraisal model, both
of which are designed to address a distinct set of theoret-
ical issues: structural models of appraisal, which a empt
to specify both the contents of appraisal and how these
contents contribute to the diff erentiation of emotional
experience (e.g., Roseman, 1984; Scherer, 1984; Smith &
Ellsworth, 1985; Smith & Lazarus, 1990); and relational
models of appraisal, which a empt to specify the personal
and situational antecedents of appraisal (e.g., Smith &
Kirby, 2009b; Smith & Pope, 1992).
STRUCTURAL MODELS OF APPRAISAL
The fi rst set of issues confronted by emotion-relevant
appraisal theories have concerned explication of the
appraisal construct. The result has been the development
and testing of several structural models that, fi rst, a empt
to identify and describe precisely what it is that is eval-
uated in appraisal, and second, a empt to describe how
the evaluations made in appraisal contribute to the dif-
ferentiation of emotional experience (e.g., Lazarus, 1991;
Roseman, 2001; Scherer, 1984, 2001; Smith & Ellsworth,
1985; Smith & Lazarus, 1990). Although each of the
individual models has unique properties to distinguish it
from the others, in broad strokes the models have devel-
oped to become very similar to one anot her. In part icular,
they are very similar in terms of what they describe as
being evaluated in appraisal, as well as how those evalu-
ations contribute to the diff erentiation of emotional expe-
rience (Ellsworth & Scherer, 2003). Thus in describing the
structural models, we focus primarily on the one pro-
posed by Smith and Lazarus (1990), not only because it is
the model with which we are most familiar and continue
to work with, but also because this model grew, more
directly than the others, out of the appraisal construct as
developed by Lazarus and colleagues within stress and
coping theory.
As such, this model shares with stress and coping
theory the assumption that appraisal is inherently rela-
tional. Thus appraisals do not simply refl ect either the
circumstances confronting the individual or his or her
characteristics, but rather they represent an evaluation of
what those circumstances imply for the individual’s per-
sonal well-being given his or her unique confi guration of
the relevance of emerging appraisal-based emotion the-
ories to the study of stress and coping.
AN OVERVIEW OF THE APPRAISAL
APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF EMOTION
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
As was the case with the appraisal approach to studying
stress and coping, a primary motivation in developing the
appraisal approach to emotion was to explain large, read-
ily observable individual diff erences (Roseman & Smith,
2001; Smith, 1989). Not only do diff erent individuals o en
respond to similar circumstances with diff erent emo-
tions, but also the same individual will o en respond to
the same circumstances quite diff erently over time. That
both these types of variability can be readily documented
causes grave diffi culties for a empts to explain emotion
through classic psychological approaches: Situationally
oriented stimulus-response theories hold emotions to be
systematic responses to particular situational contexts,
and thus have diffi culty accounting for individual diff er-
ences in response to the same context; dispositionally ori-
ented trait-based theories a ribute emotional reactions
to stable traits, and thus have diffi culty explaining the
cross-time variability that is o en observed within per-
sons. In fact, historically, the readily observed variability
in emotional reactions across individuals, circumstances,
and time has o en led scholars to characterize emotion
as chaotic, disorganized, and disorganizing (e.g., Angier,
1927; Darrow, 1935), a view that was fairly dominant
within academic psychology during the fi rst part of the
20th century (see Roseman & Smith, 2001; Smith, 1989).
Over the last half century or so (e.g., Ekman, 1984;
Izard, 1977; Lazarus, 1968; Leeper, 1948; Tomkins, 1963),
the dominant view of emotion has changed dramatically,
and within academic psychology emotion is now almost
universally viewed as a highly organized system that
serves important motivational and adaptive functions.
With this theoretical shi , eff orts to explain the elicitation
of emotion, and especially individual diff erences in this
elicitation, became very important, and appraisal theo-
ries of emotion (e.g., Roseman, 1984; Scherer, 1984; Smith
& Lazarus, 1990) developed to meet this need. In fact, the
fi rst appraisal theory of any kind (or, at least the fi rst to
go by that name) was proposed by Magda Arnold (1960)
to explain the elicitation and diff erentiation of emotion.
Lazarus drew upon the appraisal construct as articulated
by Arnold (1960), but rather than applying the construct
to emotion theory, he fi rst further developed and modi-
fi ed it in formulating and testing his model of stress and
coping (e.g., Lazarus, 1966; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984;
Lazarus & Launier, 1978). He subsequently reapplied his
version of the appraisal construct to the study of emotion
(e.g., Lazarus, 1968, 1991; Lazarus, Averill, & Opton, 1970;
Lazarus, Kanner, & Folkman, 1980; Smith & Lazarus,
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The Role of Appraisal and Emotion in Coping and Adaptation ■ 7
Table 15.1 illustrates both how the outcomes of
appraisals in terms of these components map onto the
experience of diff erent emotions (as proposed by Smith,
1991; Smith & Lazarus, 1990), and how they map onto the
major appraisal outcomes (i.e., benefi ts, harms, threats,
and challenges) as described by Lazarus and colleagues
within stress and coping theory (e.g., Lazarus & Folkman,
1984). Considered by themselves, the two components of
primary appraisal are suffi cient to defi ne one’s circum-
stances as “irrelevant” to personal well-being, as “bene-
fi t” (or benign/positive), or as “stressful.”
One’s circumstances are appraised as “irrelevant” to
personal well-being if motivational relevance is appraised
as low. Very li le emotion is hypothesized to be elicited
under such circumstances—perhaps some level of content-
ment, if the circumstances tend toward being desirable, or
some level of boredom, if they tend toward being undesir-
able. Emotional intensity is limited in this manner because
when motivational relevance is appraised as low, appraisals
of motivational congruence are assumed to be highly con-
st rai ned, such t hat app raisa ls of desir ability or undesirability
will be very mild. This refl ects an observation, fi rst made by
Ellsworth and Smith (1988), and recently more thoroughly
scrutinized by Smallheer, Kirby, and Smith (2007), that com-
ponent appraisals are not made in isolation, but rather, they
can constrain one another. In the present case, it is proposed
that appraisals of low motivational relevance are associated
with appraisals of neutral or mild motivational congruence,
and appraisals of high motivational relevance, which occur
in circumstances that the person perceives to be important,
accompany appraisals of either high or low motivational
congruence, that is, one’s circumstances are perceived to be
either highly desirable or highly undesirable. A second con-
straint refl ected in the table is the assumption that appraisals
of high motivational congruence (that one’s circumstances
are highly desirable) implies appraisals of neutral to high
coping potential for the components of both problem-focused
and emotion-focused coping potential. The assumption here
is that low coping potential (i.e., that one either cannot aff ect
or cannot adjust to one’s circumstances) is inherently unde-
sirable (cf. Smallheer et al., 2007).
Appraisals of high motivational relevance in com-
bination with high motivational congruence (i.e., as
important and desirable) are suffi cient to defi ne one’s
circumstances as benign/positive, or benefi cial, whereas
combined appraisals of high motivational relevance and
low motivational congruence (i.e., as important and unde-
sirable) are suffi cient to defi ne one’s circumstances as
“stressful.” However, in neither case are these appraisals,
taken by themselves, suffi cient to fully determine which
specifi c emotions will be elicited.
Under circumstances appraised as benefi cial, the
combination of high motivational relevance with high
motivational congruence appears to be suffi cient to elicit
feelings of happiness (Smith, 1991; Smith & Lazarus, 1990).
Moreover, it follows from the constraints discussed above
(i.e., those associated with appraisals of high motivational
congruence), that in these circumstances appraisals of
needs, goals, values, abilities, and the like. In addition,
the model uses as its starting point the constructs of pri-
mary and secondary appraisal as articulated by Lazarus
and colleagues (e.g., Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) and
described above. Specifi cally, the model presumes that
primary appraisal refl ects an evaluation of whether and
how one’s circumstances are relevant for personal well-
being, and that secondary appraisal refl ects an evalua-
tion of one’s resources and options for coping with those
circumstances (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). However, the
model has developed the appraisal construct considerably
further than has been done in the context of stress and
coping theory, and a empts to describe explicitly both
the “questions” or issues that are evaluated in appraisal
(referred to in the model as the components of appraisal),
and how the outcomes of these evaluations, or the poten-
tial answers to the appraisal questions, map onto emo-
tional experience. At present, the model highlights six
components of appraisal, two of primary appraisal, and
four of secondary appraisal.
The two components of primary appraisal are: (1)
motivational relevance, an evaluation of how important
the situation is to the person; and (2) motivational congru-
ence, an appraisal of the extent to which the situation is
consistent or inconsistent with one’s current goals (i.e., is
desirable or undesirable). The four components of second-
ary appraisal are: (1) self-accountability, an assessment of
the degree to which oneself is responsible for the situa-
tion; (2) other-accountability, an assessment of the degree
to which someone or something else is responsible; (3)
problem-focused coping potential, one’s perceived ability
to act on the situation to increase or maintain its desirabil-
ity; and (4) emotion-focused coping potential, one’s per-
ceived ability to adjust psychologically to and deal with
the situation should it turn out to not be as desired.3
3 Although given the label of “emotion-focused coping potential”
by Smith and Lazarus (1990) to correspond to the construct of emotion-
focused coping as advanced by Lazarus and colleagues (Lazarus &
Folkman, 1984), thi s constr uct, as defi ned and operationalized by Smith
and Lazarus (1990, 1993), refl ecting the individual’s ability to adjust to
his or her ci rcumstances shou ld they not turn out to be desired, actually
corresponds more closely to one’s self-evaluated potential to engage in
secondary-control engagement/accommodative coping (e.g., Compas
et al., 2001; Walker et al., 1997). Consequently, this appraisal construct
might be be er named “accommodation-focused coping potential.” We
simply raise this point here, but will return to it when we consider the
implications of this structural appraisal model for the conceptualiza-
tion of both stress and coping toward the end of the chapter.
In addition it should be noted that there is actually a fi  h com-
ponent of secondary appraisal, future expectancy, that is included in
the model, which refl ects an appraisal of whether and to what degree
one’s circumstances might improve for any reason. Across a broad
array of circumstances, this appraisal tends to be highly correlated
with appraisals of both problem- and emotion-focused coping poten-
tial (Smith et al., in preparation). There may well be a range of circum-
stances (e.g., in contending with a terminal illness), associated with
appraisals of low problem- and emotion-focused coping potential, in
which appraisals of positive future expectancy might be important in
sustaining hope, but an extended treatment of these possibilities is
beyond the scope of the present contribution.
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8 ■ III: Psychological Processes
However, unlike benefi t-related emotions, in which
appraisals of coping potential do not appear to contrib-
ute much to emotion-diff erentiation, appraisals of both
problem-focused and emotion-focused coping potential
are very important contributors to emotion-diff erentiation
under stressful circumstances. First, appraisals of high
problem-focused coping potential combine with the pri-
mary appraisals of “stress” to defi ne one’s circumstances
as a “challenge” (indicating that the person has the poten-
tial to cha nge t he circumstances to bring them more in line
with his or her desires), which elicits feelings of challenge/
de ter mi nat ion t hat mot iva te t he ind ivi dua l to sta y en gaged
in the situation and work to make it more desirable (Smith,
1991; Smith & Lazarus, 1990). In contrast, appraisals of low
problem-focused coping potential combine with the pri-
mary appraisals of “stress” to defi ne one’s circumstances
as a “harm” (indicating that the person is in a bad situa-
tion about which he or she can do li le to make it be er),
which elicits feelings of sadness and/or resignation that
motivate the individual to seek help and possibly to disen-
gage from the harmful situation, permi ing reengagement
elsewhere (Rasmussen et al., 2006; Smith & Lazarus, 1990).
Appraisals of high emotion-focused coping potential (the
evaluation that one will be able to adjust to circumstances
should they not work out as desired) have seldom been
explicitly discussed in the context of this appraisal model,
but they likely serve to allow one to remain relatively calm
in the face of the conditions appraised as stressful. In con-
trast, appraisals of low emotion-focused coping potential
(the evaluation that one will not be able to adjust to the
circumstances and/or handle them should then not work
out as desired) combines with the stress-evoking primary
appraisals to defi ne the circumstances as a threat, which
elicits feelings of anxiety that motivate the person to be
vigilant and to use caution in an a empt to avoid unde-
sired outcomes (Smith & Lazarus, 1990).
To date there has been considerable eff ort devoted
to testing the predictions made by this and the other
both problem- and emotion-focused coping potential will
be neutral to high, and therefore will not contribute appre-
ciably to the diff erentiation of benefi t-related emotions.
However, appraisals of self- and other-accountability are
hypothesized to further diff erentiate benefi t-related emo-
tional experiences, because they give direction to and a tar-
get for one’s coping activities by identifying who or what
is responsible for the initiating circumstances. Specifi cally,
appraisals of self-accountability are hypothesized to elicit
feelings of pride, whereas appraisals of other-accountabil-
ity are hypothesized to elicit feelings of gratitude.
As indicated in Table 15.1, a broad range of emotions
can be elicited when one’s circumstances are appraised as
“stressf ul” (i.e., important, but in some way not as desired).
However, the primary appraisals of motivational rele-
vance and motivational incongruence are inadequate by
themselves to determine which emotion(s) will be expe-
rienced. Instead, under conditions appraised as “stress-
ful,” secondary appraisals always need to be combined
with the primary appraisals to provide emotion-diff er-
entiation. It is this observation that provides the impetus
for Lazarus’ (e.g., 1990, 1993b, 1999) frequent argument
that emotion is a richer, more diff erentiated construct
than stress, and should therefore supplant stress in stress
and coping theory. As with the benefi t-related emotions,
appr aisal s of a cco unt abili ty pr ovide s ome of t hi s diff eren-
tiation, with appraisals of other-accountability combining
with the stressful primary appraisals to elicit anger, and
appraisals of self-accountability combining with them to
elicit a range of self-directed negative emotions, includ-
ing shame, guilt, and embarrassment.4
Table 15 .1 ■ Relating Stress-Related Appraisals to Emotions
Low Motivational Relevance High Motivational Relevance
Motivational Congruence Congruent Incongruent Congruent Incongruent (“Stress”)
Problem-focused Coping
Potential
(Assumed to not be low) (Assumed to not
be low)
High Low
“Irrelevant” “Bene t” “Opportunity” “Harm”
Contentment Boredom Happiness/joy Challenge/
determination
Sadness
Self
Unde ned Unde ned
Pride
Unde ned
Shame/guilt/
embarrassment
Accountability
Other Gratitude Anger
Emotion-focused
Coping Potential
High Contentment Boredom Same emotions
as above
Same emotions as above
Fear Anxiety
Low (assumed to
not be low)
(assumed to
not be low)
(assumed to
not be low) “Threat”
4At present, the appraisal model as articulated by Smith and
Lazarus (1990) does not provide an appraisal mechanism for diff eren-
tiating among these self-directed emotions (i.e., to determine whether
one will experience shame vs guilt vs embarrassment). This represents
a clear indication that although this structural appraisal model has
developed considerably beyond the appraisal models represented in
stress and coping theory, it remains to be fully explicated.
AQ 1
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The Role of Appraisal and Emotion in Coping and Adaptation ■ 9
proposed (Smith & Pope, 1992) and empirically supported
for two of the appraisal components, motivational rele-
vance (e.g., Griner & Smith, 2000; Smith & Pope, 1992), and
problem-focused coping potential (Smith & Kirby, 2009a;
Smith & Pope, 1992). Relational models for the remaining
appraisal components await development.
For motivational relevance, the key question to be
evaluated is “How important to me is what is happening
(or what might happen) in this situation?” As discussed
by Smith and Pope (1992), this question is inherently rela-
tional. To answer it one needs to refer both to one’s own
goals and to the implications of the situation for those
goals. A situation could have implications for many
things but would not be appraised as motivationally
relevant if the person did not care about those things.
Conversely, a person could be passionately commi ed to
a particular issue but would appraise li le motivational
relevance if the circumstances were seen as unrelated to
that issue. Thus, it is hypothesized that motivational rel-
evance will be appraised as high, resulting in relatively
intense emotions, to the extent to which an individual
cares about a particular goal or issue and his or her cir-
cumstances are perceived as having implications for that
goal or issue. Motivational relevance should be appraised
as relatively low to the extent that either condition does
not apply. These propositions have generally been sup-
ported in a series of studies in which individuals’ goals
and concerns have been assessed as their degree of com-
mitment to affi liative versus achievement issues and
then their appraisals and emotions in response to situ-
ations in which relevance to achievement and affi liative
concerns was either manipulated or controlled. In the
main, one’s degree of commitment to achievement con-
cerns predicted how motivationally relevant one would
appraise situations having high achievement relevance,
but not how motivationally relevant one would appraise
situations having high affi liative relevance, and vice-
versa (e.g., Smith & Pope, 1992). As one concrete example,
Griner and Smith (2000) assessed appraisals and emotion
in individuals who had been preselected to be relatively
high or low in their degree of orientation to affi liative
concerns while they waited to interact with another indi-
vidual on a teaching task (a situation with potential rel-
evance to both achievement and affi liative concerns). It
was observed that, relative to individuals who were low
on affi liative orientation, individuals selected to be high
on this orientation were likely to interpret the upcoming
situation as having higher affi liative relevance, and asso-
ciated with this perception, to appraise the motivational
relevance of the situation to be higher, and to report
higher levels of interest and lower levels of boredom.
For appraisals of problem-focused coping poten-
tial, the key question to be assessed is: “Can I success-
fully do something that will make (or keep) this situation
(more) the way I want it to be?” As discussed by Smith
and Pope (1992), who based their analysis, in part, on the
seminal work of Heider (1958), appraisals of this compo-
nent would seem to require consideration not only of the
structural appraisal models cited above. The results of
this work provide considerable evidence in support of the
specifi c models tested, and strongly support the general
proposition that the experience of particular emotions is
systematically related to specifi c appraisals (e.g., Frij da
et al.,1989; Kuppens, Van Mechelen, Smits, & De Boek,
2003; Roseman, 1991; Roseman, Spindel, & Jose, 1990;
Scherer, 1997; Smith & Ellsworth, 1985; Smith & Lazarus,
1993; Tong et al., 2007). Thus, these structural models pro-
vide a useful theoretical lens for understanding the elici-
tation of diff erentiated emotional experience.
RELATIONAL MODELS OF APPRAISAL
The development and testing of the structural appraisal
models, as described above, represent clear advances
both in the development of emotion theory, and in the
development of the appraisal construct more generally.
However, taken by themselves, the structural models
do not yet deliver on one of the key goals of appraisal
theory both with regard to stress and coping, and emo-
tion—namely to account systematically for individual
diff erences in appraisal that then can account for indi-
vidual diff erences in emotion and coping. This is because
the structural appraisal models typically begin with the
individual appraising his or her circumstances a particu-
lar way, and then examine the emotional consequences of
those appraisals. These models, taken by themselves, do
not a empt to address the situation and/or person factors
that gave rise to the appraisals.
To address this limitation, work on the structural
ap pr aisa l m odels ha s b ee n s up pl em en te d b y w or k o n a se c-
ond class of appraisal model, relational models of appraisal,
that was developed precisely to describe the situational
and dispositional factors that contribute to appraisal as
well as how these factors are combined to yield partic-
ular emotion-eliciting appraisals (e.g., Griner & Smith,
2000; Smith & Kirby, 2009a; Smith & Pope, 1992; reviewed
in Smith & Kirby, 2009b). The promise of this approach is
that when the relational models are suffi ciently developed,
one ought to be able to predict systematically how an indi-
vidual with a particular confi guration of personal char-
acteristics will be likely to appraise, and hence respond
emotionally, to a given situation with a particular con-
fi guration of appraisal-relevant properties. The approach
taken to develop these models has been to consider each
of the appraisal components proposed in the structural
model of Smith and Lazarus (1990) individually, and for
each to identify the relevant properties of the person and
the situation that are considered in the appraisal, and
describe how those properties are combined to deter-
mine particular outcomes. These models have largely
been developed through a logical analysis of what an
“appraiser” would need to know about the person and his
or her circumstances, to evaluate the appraisal question
represented by the particular appraisal component (e.g.,
Smith & Pope, 1992). To date, specifi c models have been
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10 ■ III: Psychological Processes
study of stress and coping (e.g., Lazarus, 1966; Lazarus &
Folkman, 1984), was borrowed from the work of Arnold
(1960) in the study of emotion. Conversely, as partially
illustrated in Table 15.1, the development of structural
and relational models of appraisal within emotion theory
(e.g., Smith & Kirby, 2009b; Smith & Lazarus, 1990) was
informed by, is consistent with, and in many ways serves
as an extension of the development of the appraisal con-
struct within stress and coping theory. As can be seen in
the table, it is not at all diffi cult to map the components of
appraisal proposed by Smith and Lazarus (1990) and oth-
ers to be important for understanding emotion elicitation
and diff erentiation onto the appraisal-related constructs
highlighted by Lazarus and colleagues (e.g., Lazarus &
Folkman, 1984) in the study of stress and coping.
Although the appraisal construct has of late been
somewhat neglected in the study of stress and coping,
as much of the theoretical work has been directed at the
conceptualization of coping within this framework, the
development of the appraisal construct has fl ourished in
the study of emotion, making the study of emotion quite
complementary to the study of stress. In fact, we believe
that the appraisal construct within emotion theory has
matured to a point where a careful consideration of this
construct as it is represented in emotion theory could
help advance the study of stress and coping. In this fi nal
part of this chapter, we would like to consider a couple of
specifi c instances where we believe this to be the case.
First, we believe that Table 15.1 vividly illustrates
Lazarus’ (1990, 1993b, 1999) claim that stress and emo-
tion are closely related constructs, and in fact, can be
considered opposite sides of the same coin, but that of
the two, emotion is the broader, richer, and more infor-
mative construct. As the table illustrates, stress-related
emotions are a subset of all emotions. There are a range
of emotional states, most notably benefi t-related emo-
tions, such as happiness, pride, and gratitude, which fall
outside of the domain of stress. At the same time, there
is a very broad range of stress-related emotions, corre-
sponding to challenges (e.g., challenge/determination),
threats (e.g., anxiety), and harms (e.g., sadness, anger, and
guilt), that are each characterized by their own distinc-
tive eliciting appraisals, and that diff er greatly in their
motivational properties (e.g., challenge/determination
motivates one to persevere on a diffi cult task, whereas
sadness/resignation motivates one to disengage from it;
Smith & Kirby, 2009a; Smith & Lazarus, 1990). Thus, as
Lazarus (1990, 1999) and Smith and Lazarus (1990) have
repeatedly argued, knowing a person’s emotional state
conveys much more information about how that person
is appraising his or her circumstances and how he or she
is likely to behave than does merely know that he or she
is experiencing stress.
In addition, examination of this table clarifi es an
ambiguity in the Lazarus and Folkman (1984) formula-
tion of stress that we identifi ed in our review. We noted
that it was unclear whether the major subtypes of stress
identifi ed by Lazarus and Folkman—challenges, threats,
perceived diffi culty of the “task” at hand (i.e., whatever
might need to be done to make one’s circumstances more
desirable), but also of how this diffi culty relates to one’s
perceived abilities. Specifi cally, to the extent to which
the task demands are perceived as exceeding one’s abili-
ties, appraised problem-focused coping potential should
be low, but to the extent to which they are perceived as
being within one’s abilities, appraised problem-focused
coping potential should be high. This hypothesis has
been largely validated in a sequence of studies in which
participants selected to be high or low in both actual and
self-perceived math ability confronted either easy or dif-
fi cult math word problems (Smith & Kirby, 2009a; Smith
& Pope, 1992). For instance, Smith and Kirby (2009a)
found that when confronting an easy problem, one’s self-
perceived and actual abilities were largely unrelated to
one’s appraisals of problem-focused coping potential
and its related emotions of challenge/determination and
resignation, but that in response to an extremely diffi -
cult problem, at all but the highest levels of combined
self-perceived and actual ability, appraisals of problem-
focused coping potential increased as a function of both
increasing actual ability (as assessed by the Math SAT)
and self-reported ability. In addition, increasing levels of
appraised problem-focused coping potential were asso-
ciated with increased levels of challenge/determination
and decreased levels of resignation in response to the
diffi cult problem. That the appraisals and emotions of
the highest ability group did not conform to these pre-
dictions suggests that the model advanced by Smith and
Pope (1992) may be somewhat oversimplifi ed (see Smith
& Kirby, 2009a), but in the main the general hypotheses
were supported.
For the present purposes, the key thing to note
about these relational models is that within the domain
of emotion, eff orts are underway to develop and extend
appraisal models so that they can begin to deliver mean-
ingfully on the promise of being able to account system-
atically for individual diff erences in emotion, and by
extension, coping.
TOWARD AND INTEGRATED PERSPECTIVE
ON APPRAISAL, EMOTION, AND COPING
In reviewing side by side the separate literatures on
appraisal, stress, and coping, and on appraisal and emo-
tion, we hope that we have rather forcefully illustrated
that, although the two literatures o en appear to be
largely independent, the study of appraisal, stress and
coping, on the one hand, and of appraisal and emotion,
on the other, are highly interdependent. In large part,
through the infl uences of Lazarus and his colleagues, the
two lines of study have always informed one another.
This is especially evident when the development of the
appraisal construct is considered. The original appraisal
construct that Lazarus developed and applied to the
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The Role of Appraisal and Emotion in Coping and Adaptation ■ 11
components of primary appraisal as represented by
the model proposed by Smith and Lazarus (1990), and
depicted in Table 15.1, off ers a cleaner, less problematic
defi nition of stress than that originally off ered by Lazarus
and Folkman (1980), and that this defi nition further pro-
vides a basis for selecting among the current alternative
conceptualizations of the major types of coping.
As depicted in Table 15.1, stress is defi ned by the
combined appraisals of high motivational relevance and
of motivational incongruence or, in other words, it occ urs
when the person appraises his or her circumstances as
important, but in someway not as desired. The motiva-
tional incongruence, itself, can be conceptualized as a
discrepancy, or gap, between what one wants in the given
situation (referred to by Roseman, 1984, in his appraisal
model, as one’s “motivational state”), and what the per-
son has in the situation (referred to by Roseman, 1984, as
one’s “situational state”). Thus, in this view, psychological
stress is defi ned as a subjectively important discrepancy,
or gap, between what one wants and what one has in a
given situation, and the strength of the subjective stress
is hypothesized to be a function of the magnitude of the
discrepancy. These intuitions are captured in Figure 15.1.
This alternative conceptualization of stress seems cleaner
than the original, as there is no need to appeal to the
demands of the situation taxing or exceeding one’s abili-
ties, nor is there a need to require that the circumstances
necessarily endanger the person’s well-being.
Moreover, this alternative conceptualization of
stress appears to provide a theoretical basis for selecting
among the alternative conceptualizations of coping that
were reviewed above. If psychological stress is defi ned
as the magnitude of the discrepancy between one’s moti-
vational state and one’s situational state, then coping
can be defi ned as one’s eff orts to reduce the magnitude
of this discrepancy. As Figure 15.1 illustrates, there are
two basic routes for reducing the discrepancy. First, one
can act on the circumstances to change them to bring
them more in line with one’s desires. This clearly corre-
sponds to problem-focused coping (Lazarus & Folkman,
1984) or primary-control engagement coping (Compas
and harms, were solely defi ned by primary appraisals,
as Lazarus and Folkman seemed to imply in a number
of places, or whether these subtypes of stress required
a joint consideration of both primary and secondary
appraisal. As indicated in the Table 15.1, just as the dif-
ferentiation of stress-related emotions requires a joint
consideration of both primary and secondary appraisal,
the major subtypes of stress described by Lazarus and
Folkman are clearly defi ned by the joint consideration of
both primary and secondary appraisals. All three sub-
types of stress are characterized by the same combina-
tion of primary appraisals—high motivational relevance
and low motivational congruence. It is consideration of
secondary appraisal components that diff erentiate the
subtypes. Thus, challenges are further associated with
appraisals of high problem-focused coping potential;
in contrast, harms are further associated with apprais-
als of low problem-focused coping potential, and threats
are further associated with appraisals of low emotion-
focused coping potential. Therefore, just as the diff eren-
tiation of stress-related emotions is heavily dependent
upon secondary appraisal, so too are the defi nitions of
the major subtypes of psychological stress.
At perhaps an even more fundamental theoretical
level, we believe that a careful consideration of appraisal
as it has developed in the study of emotion helps to
address some diffi cult issues in the defi nition of stress
and coping. In particular, in our review of stress and
coping theory we noted some ambiguities in the very
defi nition of stress, as well as considerable disagree-
ment as to how to best conceptualize the major types of
coping. With regard to the defi nition of stress, we noted
that there are problems associated with defi ning stress
as being based on appraisals that the situation “taxes or
exceeds one’s resources” due to ambiguities as to what
that phrase means, and that further defi ning stress in
terms of appraisals that the situation is “endangering”
the person’s well-being is too restrictive in that it seems
to exclude challenges, identifi ed by Lazarus and Folkman
(1984) as an important subtype of stress, from the stress
category. We believe that a careful consideration of the
Stress: A subjectively important
discrepancy between one’s
circumstances and what one desires
(Motivarional Relevance +
Motivational Incongruence)
What one wants
Emotion-Focused or
Accommodation-Focused Coping
Problem-Focused Coping
What one has
Figure 15.1 ■ Our theoretical conceptualization
de nes subjective stress as a perceived discrepancy
between what one has in a given situation and what
one wants in that situation. This gap is de ned by
the combined primary appraisals of high motiva-
tional relevance (importance) and high motivational
incongruence (undesirability). Two major forms of
coping are indicated as different routes to reduc-
ing the discrepancy, and hence, to reducing subjec-
tive stress: Problem-focused coping, which re ects
efforts to change the situation to bring it more in
line with what one wants; and emotion-focused or
accommodative coping, which re ects efforts to
alter one’s goals and desires to bring them more in
line with what one has.
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12 ■ III: Psychological Processes
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et al., 2001), as depicted in the major conceptualizations
of stress. Second, one can act on one’s desires or beliefs
in such a way that the circumstances are made more
desirable without actually changing them. This can be
accomplished through such strategies as reprioritizing
ones goals (e.g., Rasmussen et al., 2006), appraising one’s
circumstances in a more positive light, reinterpreting the
relevance of the circumstances to one’s goals, and the
like. These strategies are much more akin to secondary-
control engagement coping as described by Compas et al.
(2001) and accommodative coping as described by Walker
et al. (1997) than they are to emotion-focused coping as
described by Lazarus and Folkman (1984). Thus, if the
emotion-based appraisal model of Smith and Lazarus
(1990) is applied to stress and coping theory, an implica-
tion is that the second major mode of coping included in
most theories might be er be conceptualized as accom-
modative coping/secondary-control engagement coping
than as emotion-focused coping. Further highlighting
the interdependence between stress and coping theory
and emotion theory, acceptance of this conclusion would
imply that the appraisal component referred to as emo-
tion-focused coping potential in the model of Smith and
Lazarus (1990) might be er be called something along
the lines of accommodation-focused coping potential.
As we hope we have illustrated through this review
and analysis, we believe there is much to be gained by
adopting a combined theoretical perspective that inte-
grates stress and coping theory with emotion theory.
Even while evolving as seemingly independent litera-
tures, both fi elds of study have benefi  ed, especially in
the development of the appraisal construct, through the
mutual infl uence of each fi eld on the other. We believe
that the mutual benefi t would only be heightened if
an integrated theoretical perspective were adopted.
As Lazarus (1990, 1993b, 1999) has argued, and we
have a empted to illustrate, a consideration of emo-
tion enriches and clarifi es the construct of stress, and
helps to clarify the construct of coping. On the other
side, much of the study of emotion within appraisal the-
ory has been focused on describing the antecedents of
emotion, and relatively li le a ention has been devoted
to documenting the motivational eff ects of emotion on
behavior and adaptation. We believe that the advances
in stress and coping theory in conceptualizing coping
and in relating it to adaptation and adjustment would
prove very useful to emotion theorists as they a empt
to map out the motivational and behavioral eff ects of
various emotions. Our hope is that this review, by indi-
cating the promise of adopting a combined theoretical
perspective, will make the actual adoption of such a
perspective more likely.
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Author Query
AQ 1: Table 15.1 alignment is okay? Please advice.
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