Positive Appraisal Style: What it is and how to measure it

"People are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of things." - Epictetus, Stoic philosopher

The way we interpret events, rather than the events themselves, shapes how we react—a concept that dates back thousands of years.

Put simply: we are not annoyed because we missed a bus, but we are annoyed because what missing the bus means - we'll be late to work, our relationship with our boss might suffer or we might not get to see an important person.

In modern psychology, this idea is known appraisal. Appraisal theories of stress and emotion explain that our reaction to events depends on how we evaluate or interpret them. Importantly, appraisal isn’t only about conscious thoughts; it also involves automatic, sometimes unconscious responses.  For instance, pain usually triggers a negative reaction without us having to think about it. But if we believe that pain signals a serious illness, our reaction intensifies.This short example shows, that appraisal takes places on several levels and that multiple processes are involved. It is also possible for appraisals to change over time. I might have a headache and believe that it is a sign of a serious disease, but after talking to some friends who offer some perspective, I might no longer appraise the headache as so catastrophic.

So, what is a positive appraisal style? Research shows people tend to have consistent patterns—called appraisal styles—in how they interpret events. Having a positive appraisal style means you typically evaluate situations realistically or optimistically rather than negatively. It involves believing negative outcomes are uncommon, trusting your ability to cope, and avoiding catastrophic thinking.

Why does this matter? A positive appraisal style helps you respond to stress more effectively, preventing overreactions that drain mental, emotional, and physical resources.

Overall, having a positive appraisal style should result in you having good stress responses to events, in other words, you are less likely to overreact. Overreacting uses up mental, physical and emotional resources. It is tiring and over time it could mean that your 'batteries' run low, maybe increasing your risk of long-term health risks. This is why positive appraisal style is so important, potentially it could protect you from the negative consequences of stress.

So far, there were no ways of measuring positive appraisal style, which is why we recently developed two questionnaires that measure it. You can find the full publication in PLoS One.

The two questionnaires can easily be used in scientific studies, although they should not be used as diagnostic tools.

One of the limitations is that as I stated earlier, appraisal processes are plentiful - the questionnaires can likely only access the appraisals that can be expressed with words and are accessible to our consciousness. Additional measures of the other elements of appraisals should be developed in the future.

Early findings support the Positive Appraisal Theory of Resilience, proposed by Prof Dr. Raffael Kalisch, which suggests that a positive appraisal style plays a vital role in maintaining mental health by reducing stress responses. For more details, you can refer to my publications on this topic.