Review: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Cognitive Appraisal Theory without Being Conscious of It Author(s): Richard A. Shweder Reviewed work(s): Emotion and Adaptation by Richard S. Lazarus Source: Psychological Inquiry, Vol. 4, No. 4 (1993), pp. 322-326 Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1449649 Accessed: 01/03/2010 14:04 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. 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BOOK REVIEW ESSAYS ON LAZARUS'S EMOTIONANDADAPTATION Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Cognitive Appraisal Theory Without Being Conscious of It Richard A. Shweder Committeeon HumanDevelopment Universityof Chicago Emotion and Adaptation, by RichardS. Lazarus,is Lazarusgrounds his principle by suggesting that "we an intellectual monument.It is an academic shrine to are constructed in such a way that certain appraisal the mind of the psychologist, where visitors may dwell patternsand their core relationalthemes [e.g., the ap- for a while in awe of the magnificence of its scope and praisal that one has transgresseda moral imperative] ennobled its by scholarly integrity. For pilgrims such will lead to certain emotional reactions [e.g., guilt]" as myself, who saunter about in search of deep and (pp. 191, 122) and that,"once the appraisalshave been comprehensive reflections on psychological topics of made,the emotionalresponse is a foregone conclusion, importance,Emotion and Adaptation is an epitome of a consequence of biology." (p. 192) At one point, he the true discipline. The book contains everything you writes, "Once we have appraisedthat our ego-identity ever wanted to know about cognitive appraisaltheory has been enhanced,we are bound to react with pride, without being conscious of it, and much more. From and so on for each core relationaltheme and its emo- Heideggerian "nonreflective understandings" to tion" (p. 359). At another point, he asserts that "ap- Gibsonian "affordances",from Schacterian "arousal praisalis a necessary and sufficient condition"for the processes"to Ekmanesque"affect programs"-almost production of an emotion (p. 171). According to every major concept and distinction in the study of Lazarus,the psychobiological principle "providesfor cognition, emotion, motivation, coping, and develop- universalsin the emotion process of the humanspecies ment worthy of note is noted, and critiqued.Better yet, andprobably applies to otheranimals, too" (p. 191). He Lazaruscomes out on the right side of things most of believes the principle is "evident observationally"(p. the time, or at least I think he does. I came away from 191). the of experience reading this book (or should I say Lazarus'spsychobiological principle, or some prin- encyclopedia) greatly admiringthe author,feeling re- ciple more or less like it, is definitive of all cognitive dedicated to the life of the mind, and eager to quibble. appraisal approaches to the study of the emotions, In this essay, I summarize Lazarus's main message althoughthe principleis not always labeled as such or about the natureof the emotions by examininga single interpretedin precisely the same way by differentthe- proposition,which he refersto as his "psychobiological orists. Ellsworth (in press), for example, writes that, principle." "accordingto appraisaltheories of emotion, emotions Lazarusformulates his psychobiologicalprinciple as consist of patternedprocesses of appraisal of one's follows: relation to the environment ... along with associated physiological responses and action tendencies" and If a personappraises his or her to the relationship that, for example, "if someone has lost something be- environment in a particularway [e.g., as irrevocable loved, and if the loss is seen as due to circumstances loss], then a specific emotion [e.g., sadness] which is then the tied to the appraisalpattern, always follows. A corol- beyond anyone's control, personwill feel sad" lary is that if two individualsmake the same appraisal, (p. 37). Universalizingher formulation,Ellsworth sug- then they will experiencethe same emotion,regardless gests that "the dimensions of appraisal identified in of the actualcircumstances. (p. 191) studiesof Westernersare culturally general, that similar patterns of appraisal will result in similar emotions across cultures"(p. 10). Ellsworth, however, does not Emotion and Adaptation, by Richard S. Lazarus, 1991, New view her principle as evident observationally,at least York:Oxford University Press. not yet. Because of the limited data available on ap- BOOK REVIEWESSAYS praisal processes and emotional functioning in non- the way I feel because my child has died" and "I feel Western cultural traditions, she tentatively advances the way I feel because I was fired from my job." the principleas a hypothesis. I have a somewhatdiffer- Although it is a frequent move among cognitive ent view of the centralprinciple of cognitive appraisal appraisal theorists to analytically detach mental theory, which I discuss after I summarize Lazarus's states from their content, one is left wondering pre- particularapproach. cisely whose style of appraisalhas been privileged in In Emotion and Adaptation, the emotions are ana- the theory and whether the theory has really helped lyzed as a cognitive system. This is because Lazarus us understandthe mental life of the native from the believes that the emotions are ways of apprehending native's point of view. Indeed, one question not ad- states of the world that have significance for personal dressed in the book is whether there is individual or well-being. The emotions are "about"the world. They cross-cultural variation in the abstract versus con- are mental maps about certain kinds of truths.That is crete organization of emotional experiences. Is it what makes them "cognitive."That is why "appraisal" possible that there exists a good deal of individual must be included as a fundamentalfeature of an emo- and cross-cultural variation in how many distinct tional response. emotions have been made available (through pro- Whatis a cognitive appraisal?According to Lazarus, cesses of abstraction and concretization) for a per- it is an evaluationof the significance of what is happen- son to experience? ing in the world for personalwell-being (p. 89). These The abstract core relational themes identified by "significations" or meanings are classified into two Lazarus have a dual ontological status. "Demeaning kinds-harmful to the self (losses or costs) andbenefi- personal insult," for example, is treated as both an cial (gains). It is not entirely clear why Lazaruselects evaluation of external events (which causes anger) to cast his rich analysis in a utilitarianframework of and as a constitutive part of the internal psychologi- cost-benefit analysis,especially given the role of moral cal experience of the emotion as well. In one of the evaluations (e.g., a perceived injustice,not necessarily most fascinating chapters in the book ("Issues of to one's self) in mediatingan emotional response(e.g., Causality"), Lazarus forthrightly and proudly ac- indignation). knowledges that he views his core relational themes The two kinds of meanings (costs and benefits) are (e.g., loss, threat, insult) both as the cause of the then further specified in terms of "core relational emotion and as partof the experience of the emotion, themes" (e.g., irrevocable loss, demeaning offense, the effect (p. 173). Lazarus recognizes that this blur- physical danger, threat, enhancement of ego-iden- ring of the distinction between independent and de- tity). The core relational themes are analyzed as pendent variables, between cause and effect, will abstract schemata, as "irrevocable loss" rather than bother some readers, but he is too sophisticated, as "irrevocable job loss" or "irrevocable loss of a subtle, well-read, and up-to-date to be deterredby the child." Thus, despite his "cognitivism," Lazarus old-fashioned procrustean scruples of a positivist pulls up short of fully defining the emotions by philosophy of science and causality. Nevertheless, reference to their "objects" (loss of a job in contrast Lazarus's formulationis going to leave many readers to loss of a child). He elects to treathis core relational wondering whether a postulated mental appraisal themes categorically, as detachable abstract sche- (which he claims is a causal condition of the emo- mata (e.g., as irrevocable loss) while acknowledging tion) is anything other than a reified redescriptionof that it is possible that "there are as many emotions as a component of the meaning of the emotion. It left there are specific ways there are to be harmed or me wondering whether it is really necessary to reify benefited" (p. 117). meanings (redescribing them as though they were In Lazarus's approach, a cognitive appraisal is an antecedent causal events) in order to acknowledge abstract evaluation of the significance of what is their central role in our mental life.