Stress, Appraisal, and Coping

Jul 9, 2026

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Stress, Appraisal, and Coping outlines Richard S. Lazarus and Susan Folkman’s foundational approach to psychological stress by linking how people appraise events to physiological outcomes and emotional experience. The work traces the development of stress concepts, explains why cognitive appraisal is necessary in stress theory, and details core appraisal processes, vulnerability, and event uncertainty. It also examines personal and situational factors influencing appraisal and coping, positioning the theory within broader shifts in psychology.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages460

Reading Time19 h 19 min

AccessFree to download

Foreword

Preface

1. The Stress Concept in the Life Sciences

2. Cognitive Appraisal Processes

3. Person Factors Influencing Appraisal

4. Situation Factors Influencing Appraisal

# Stress, Appraisal,and Coping Richard S.LazarusSusan Folkman | STRESS, | | --- | | APPRAISAL, | | AND COPING | Richard S.Lazarus,Ph.D.,has been Professor of Psychology at theUniversity of California,Berkeley,since 1957.After obtaining his doc-torate in 1948 from the University of Pittsburgh,he taught at JohnsHopkins University and at Clark University where he was Director ofClinical Training.He has published extensively on a variety of issuesin personality and clinical psychology,and was the recipient of aGuggenheim Fellowship in 1969.He has been a pioneer in stresstheory and research,exemplified by his 1966 book,Psychological Stressand the Coping Process,and by his influential psychophysiological re-search during the 1960s.Professor Lazarus maintains an active pro-gram of research as Principal Investigator of the Berkeley Stress andCoping Project,and continues to be a major figure in emotion theory,as well as personality and clinical psychology. Susan Folkman,Ph.D.,is Associate Research Psychologist at theUniversity of California,Berkeley,and Co-Principal Investigator ofthe Berkeley Stress and Coping Project.After a career of full-timeparenting,Dr.Folkman began her doctoral work in 1975 and re-ceived her Ph.D.from the University of California,Berkeley,in 1979.She has published numerous journal articles and book chapters basedon her research,andhas rapidly gained a reputation for her ability toexpand appraisal and coping theory and to test it empirically. # STRESS, APPRAISAL,AND COPING Richard S.Lazarus,Ph.D.Susan Folkman,Ph.D. Springer Publishing CompanyNew York Copyright ◎1984 by Springer Publishing Company,Inc.11 West 42nd StreetNew York,NY 10036-8002 All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system,ortransmitted in any form orby any means,electronic,mechanical,photocopying,recording,or otherwise,without the prior permission of Springer PublishingCompany,Inc. Springer Publishing Company,Inc.11 West 42nd StreetNew York,NY 10036-8002 060708/10 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Lazarus,Richard S. Stress,appraisal,and coping.Bibliography:p.Includes index. 1.Stress(Psychology)1.Folkman,Susan.II.Title BF575.S75L321984 155.9 84-5593 ISBN 0-8261-4191-9 Printed in the United States of America | To Bunny; | | --- | | To David | ## Foreword My first encounter with Richard Lazarus was during my graduatestudent days,back in the early 1970s.I wanted to study meditation asan intervention in the physiology of stress arousal,and at the timeLazarus was leading the way in such studies of stress.After a meetingwith him in his Berkeley office in which I described what I was hopingto do,he gave me some technical advice and most kindly helped meobtain a copy of a film he had used with success in his own work toprime stress arousal in experimental subjects. I did not realize it then,but through the lens of history I see clearlythat Lazarus had already begun to play a major role in shifting thethinking of psychology as a field.At that time experimental psychologywas in the thrall of behaviorists,who took as the proper study of ourfield the readily observable responses of organisms(whether pigeonsor people)to a given stimulus.For behaviorists like B.F.Skinner(withwhom I shared an occasional elevator ride in those days in Harvard'spsychology building,William James Hall),the workings of the mindwere but a “"blackbox"between stimulus and response,nothing worthyof studying. But Lazarus saw that how we think about and perceive the eventsof our lives has direct physiological consequence:Mental events havebiological outcomes.That insight may seem alltoo obvious today,butin the zeitgeist of those times it was a radical proposal. His experiments and theoretical writing played multiple roles in thehistory of psychology.For one,they kept alive the study of emotionsduring a time when the behaviorist tide was washing it away.Foranoth

FAQs

What central idea connects stress to cognitive appraisal in this book?

The theory emphasizes that how people think about and perceive events has direct physiological consequences, with mental events producing biological outcomes.

Why is a cognitive appraisal concept considered necessary in stress theory?

Cognitive appraisal is presented as essential because it explains how events are interpreted and how that interpretation shapes stress experience and related emotional outcomes.

What kinds of factors influence how appraisal is formed?

Appraisal is influenced by both person factors (such as beliefs and commitments) and situation factors (such as novelty, predictability, event uncertainty, ambiguity, and temporal aspects).

Jul 9, 2026

138

Upload by Rowan