Richard S. Lazarus, Emotion and Adaptation, New York: Oxford University
Press, 1991 (ISBN 978-0-19-506994-5; later printings 978-0-19-509266-0).
Crossref dates the Oxford Academic edition to 29 August 1991, which is
published: here. Open Library gives a median of 567 pages.
Key takeaways
Registered from Crossref’s chapter records and from read works that cite it. Nothing here is a reading.
- Chapters (Crossref): 1 About Emotion; 2 Issues of Research, Classification, and Measurement; 3 The Person-Environment Relationship, Motivation, and Coping; 4 Cognition and Emotion; 5 Issues of Causality; 6 Goal Incongruent (Negative) Emotions; 7 Goal Congruent (Positive) and Problematic Emotions; 8 Individual Development; 9 Social Influence; 10 Emotions and Health; 11 Implications for Research, Assessment, Treatment, and Prevention.
- As cited by Gross (LIT-554), as “Lazarus, 1991a”: the “adaptational encounter” as the unit of an emotion episode, emotions as having specific objects, and a source of the consensual “evaluation → response tendencies” model of emotion generation (p. 273 and footnote 1).
- As cited by Barrett (LIT-542): the first example of a “classical” causal appraisal theory, one that assumes “a response derives from a stimulus that is evaluated for its meaning”. She calls such theories “highly doubtful”.
Standing in the record
Filed on 2026-10-03 at the owner’s request. It is the work both read papers in
this batch cite for appraisal theory: Barrett as the theory she rejects, Gross
as part of the consensus he builds on. Without it, the record would hold the
rivalry with only one side named. It is Deferred because neither the book nor
a shorter statement by Lazarus could be read lawfully (see the status note).
Frijda’s action-readiness theory (LIT-540, read) is the appraisal account
the record does hold in its author’s words. Both read papers class Lazarus’s
theory with Frijda’s as appraisal theory: an evaluation of the event’s meaning
for the person elicits the emotion. What Lazarus takes an
emotion to be, and so where he and Frijda part, is exactly what an unread
entry cannot state; a reading of the 1991 paper would settle it.
The tag psychopathology-and-treatment rests on chapters 10 and 11, on health
and on treatment and prevention.
Priority for a reading: high for the appraisal side of the emotion-theory rivalry. Start with the 1991 American Psychologist paper.