Richard Lazarus
Richard S. Lazarus ( March 3, 1922 in New York; † 24 November 2002 in Walnut Creek ) was an American psychologist and a leading proponent of the theory of emotion in cognitive assessment. He developed a theory for stress management that bears his name as a stress model of Lazarus, and contributed to the cognitive turn.
Life
Richard S. Lazarus studied in 1942 at the City College of New York. After three and a half years service in the Army, he received his doctorate at the University of Pittsburgh in 1948. Then Lazarus taught until 1953 at the Faculty of the Johns Hopkins University and then to 1957 at Clark University. Then Lazarus worked at UC Berkeley, until he retired in 1991.
Richard Lazarus had two children with his wife Bernice. He died on 24 November 2002 after a fall at his home. His legacy includes more than 150 scientific publications and twenty his own works.
Research
When Lazarus began his research on stress and emotions at Johns Hopkins University, there were - except for the military - only limited interest in these topics. At UC Berkeley put Lazarus in his investigations also movies an to elicit stress reactions or emotions in the subjects. He documented how the subjects the perceived under different conditions ( eg added intellectualized, trivializing comments) rated. Lazarus found that the different interpretation (evaluation) has the perceived effect on the strength of the stress and thus its management.
Richard Lazarus emphasized the importance which belongs to the way to deal with stress. So this had a decisive impact on the physical, social and emotional wellbeing. He also found a correlation between stress and coping ( coping with stress ). If coping acts, the stress is controlled and managed. Does not work the coping, the stress gets out of control and may end up in a mental disorder.
After 1966 he published a scientific work on psychological stress and coping processes, this suggested for the first time on the academic side of interest in this topic. So his research results were also worn in the departments of sociology, anthropology and medicine.
In his published work in 1999 Stress and Emotion: A New Synthesis ( Stress and Emotion: A New Synthesis ) Lazarus made the relationship between stress, emotions and feelings clearly. He also stressed the stress of everyday life - contrary to the prevailing view at that time - as a cause of human suffering. He devoted special attention to the evaluation of events and the subsequent reaction itself.