Cognitive appraisal theory

Cognitive appraisal theory or cognitive evaluation theory is a theory of emotion in which arousalis said to provide the substrate for an emotion, but that cognitive processes within the person govern how this is interpreted, experienced and labelled. So for example arousal prior to public speaking may be processed as fear, in the context of an impossible task by one person but evaluated as a positive motivational, energising emotion by another. Their previous learning histories and other factors providing a context for their interpretations of the experience.

The theory was originally proposed by Stanley Schachter in 1964.

He and Jerome Singer had conducted an experiment two years earlier which laid the foundations of the theory. In this experiment they had injected participants with adrenaline

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