Transactional theory and research on emotions and coping

TLDR

The article discusses transaction and relationship, process, and emotion as a system, emphasizing that the person‑environment relationship is mediated by cognitive appraisal and coping. The authors aim to examine the premises of their cognitive‑relational theory of emotion and coping, evaluate ten years of empirical findings on appraisal, coping, and their outcomes, and highlight remaining substantive and methodological issues. The study uses ten years of programmatic empirical research to evaluate the theory and measurement of appraisal and coping, their dynamic interplay, antecedents, outcomes, and methodological issues such as causal inference, microanalytic versus macroanalytic strategies, objective versus subjective approaches, confounding, and method variance.

Abstract

In this article we examine the fundamental premises of our cognitive‐relational theory of emotion and coping and assess our progress in examining them through 10 years of programmatic empirical research. Our discussion involves the metatheoretical topics of transaction and relationship, process, and emotion as a system. The person‐environment relationship is mediated by two key processess: cognitive appraisal and coping. We evaluate the findings of our research on these processes, their dynamic interplay, their antecedents, and their short‐term and long‐term outcomes. In the final section we highlight major substantive and methodological issues that need to be addressed. These include issues surrounding the theory and measurement of appraisal, functional and dysfunctional coping, causal inference, microanalytic vs macroanalytic research strategies, objective vs subjective approaches and confounding, and the problem of method variance.