Definition
Negative appraisals refer to the process through which people evaluate or appreciate a particular negative encounter in the environment that is relevant to his or her well-being.
Appraisal Theories and the Origin of Negative Appraisals
Although the term of appraisal has been commonly used in the literature for several decades (e.g., Arnold 1960), the controversy regarding the structure and the function of appraisal remains a concern. The present entry will first describe the emergence of the term “negative appraisal” in the literature and propose a clear definition of “negative appraisals.”
Lazarus and Folkman (1984) defined the concept of appraisal as “a process through which the person evaluates whether a particular encounter with the environment is relevant to his or her well-being.” They distinguished between two types of appraisal: a primary appraisal and a secondary appraisal. In a primary appraisal, people evaluate whether they have anything at stake in the encounter...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Arnold, M. B. (1960). Emotion and personality (2 vols). New York: Columbia University Press.
Brown, C. A., & Jones, A. K. P. (2010). Meditation experience predicts less negative appraisal of pain: Electrophysiological evidence for the involvement of anticipatory neural responses. Pain, 150, 428–438. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pain.2010.04.017.
Clore, G. L., & Ortony, A. (2001). Appraisal theories how cognition shapes affect into emotion. In M. Lewis, J. A. Haviland-Jones, & L. Feldman Barret (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (3rd ed., pp. 628–642). New York: the Guilford Press.
Ehlers, A., & Clark, D. M. (2000). A cognitive model of posttraumatic stress disorder. Behavior Research and Therapy, 38, 319–345. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2017.04.016.
Harwood, D. G., Barker, W. W., Owny, R. L., Bravo, M., Aguero, H., & Duara, R. (2000). Predictors of positive and negative appraisal among Cuban American caregivers of Alzheimer’s disease patients. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 15, 481–487. https://doi.org/10.1002/1099-1166(200006)15:6<481::AID-GPS984>3.0.CO;2-J.
Lawton, M. P., Kleban, M. H., & Moss, M. (1989). Measuring caregiving appraisal. Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 44, 61–71 https://academic.oup.com/geronj/article-abstract/44/3/P61/595300/Measuring-Caregiving-Appraisal.
Lazarus, R. S. (1991). Emotion and adaptation. New York: Oxford University Press.
Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal and coping. New York: Springer.
Moors, A., Ellsworth, P. C., Scherer, K. R., & Frijda, N. H. (2013). Appraisal theories of emotion: State of the art and future development. Emotion Review, 5, 119–124. https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073912468165.
Pearlin, L. I., Mullan, J. T., Semple, S. J., & Skaff, M. M. (1990). Caregiving and the stress process: An overview of concepts and their measures. Gerontologist, 30, 583–594 https://academic.oup.com/gerontologist/article-abstract/30/5/583/564941/Caregiving-and-the-Stress-Process-An-Overview.
Pruchno, P. A., Peters, N. D., & Burant, C. J. (1995). Mental health of co-resident family caregivers: Examination of a two-factor model. Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 50B, 247–256. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/50B.5.P247.
Roseman, I. J., & Smith, C. A. (2001). Appraisal theory: Overview, assumptions, varieties, controversies. In K. R. Scherer, A. Schorr, & T. Johnstone (Eds.), Appraisal processes in emotion: Theory, methods, research (pp. 3–19). New York: Oxford University Press.
Scherer, K. R. (2001). Appraisal considered as a process of multi-level sequential checking. In K. R. Scherer, A. Schorr, & T. Johnstone (Eds.), Appraisal processes in emotion: Theory, methods, research (pp. 92–120). New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Silvia, P. J. (2005). What is interesting? Exploring the appraisal structure of interest. Emotion, 5, 89–102. https://doi.org/10.1037/1528-3542.5.1.89.
Smith, C. A., & Ellsworth, P. C. (1985). Patterns of cognitive appraisal in emotion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43, 813–838. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.48.4.813.
Toohey, M. J., Muralidharan, A., Medoff, D., Lucksted, A., & Dixon, L. (2016). Caregiver positive and negative appraisals. Effects of the national alliance on mental illness family-to-family intervention. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 204, 156–159. https://doi.org/10.1097/NMD.0000000000000447.
Zuj, D. V., Palmer, M. A., Gray, K. E., Hsu, C. M. K., Nicholson, E. L., Mahli, G. S., Bryant, R. A., & Felmingham, K. L. (2017). Negative appraisals and fear extinction are independently related to PTSD symptoms. Journal of Affective Disorders, 217, 246–251. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2017.04.016.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Freydefont, L. (2020). Negative Appraisals. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24612-3_826
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24612-3_826
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-24610-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-24612-3
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences