According to Kalisch et al. there is a single general resilience mechanism that protects against the adverse effects of stress. The key mechanism consists of a positive appraisal style, and it mediates all other known resilience factors. I find their framework very fruitful in thinking about the relationship between appraisals and resilience. In this commentary, I focus on the special role that knowledge plays in promoting resilience and see whether it helps us understand and evaluate their proposal.
Knowledge obviously can affect appraisal style, as a person might feel more positive about an aversive situation if she knows how to overcome it. Presumably a difference in knowledge by itself, however, does not necessitate a difference in appraisal style. So let us imagine two similar subjects with exactly the same appraisal style. Given identical stimuli, they would have appraisals of the same strength, and emotional responses of the same valence. (They also can have the same dispositions when it comes to reappraisals and interference inhibition.) But suppose one of them knows more about how to achieve her goals, and has better metacognitive knowledge about her own weaknesses and motivators. Using her knowledge, she is more skillful in avoiding temptations, overcoming obstacles, and maneuvering herself into situations that trigger positive appraisals. Consequently, she encounters fewer stressors and is more resilient than her counterpart in the long run. But their appraisal tendencies are supposed to be identical. If this is right, knowledge as a promoter of success is a powerful individual factor that can enhance resilience without altering appraisal style.
In fact, we might go further and suggest that the protective function of a positive appraisal style is not without qualification, and needs to be moderated by knowledge. Although elevated positive emotions might serve important protective and motivational functions, it is also possible that unrealistic expectations can increase the likelihood of failures and frustrations, and make them more difficult to cope with. Positive valence has been linked to more-optimistic perception of risk (Johnson & Tversky Reference Johnson and Tversky1983), which can lead to failure to take precautions or engagement in risky behavior. For example, an athlete who is wildly confident of his ability and downplays pain and other danger signs is susceptible to burnout and serious injury. This can exacerbate stress and depression later on. More generally, human beings are prone to cognitive biases, such as overestimating their own competence (Kruger & Dunning Reference Kruger and Dunning1999) and being too optimistic about the future (Helweg-Larsen & Shepperd Reference Helweg-Larsen and Shepperd2001). It is worth noting that individuals afflicted by mania have abnormally intense positive emotions, but the condition is associated with dysfunctional behavior and heightened irritability (Gruber et al. Reference Gruber, Mauss and Tamir2011). In short, positive appraisals and resilience need not have a straightforward monotonic relationship.
The underlying point is the familiar Aristotelian idea that actions and feelings should display moderation and appropriateness. Interestingly, Aristotle argued that not all pleasures are worth having, because they interfere with one another. Choosing the right pleasures is based not on the pleasures themselves, but with reference to the goodness and badness of the activities they are associated with. Similarly, positive appraisals are not all equally worth having for the sake of resilience. Resilience is better promoted not by inflating positive appraisals, but by using knowledge to calibrate appraisal valence that is appropriate to the situation, making it more effective to achieve a goal or remove a stressor. Given the interaction between knowledge and appraisals, I am not sure why the latter should be regarded as the more central resilience mechanism.
The connection between knowledge and appraisals also raises questions about how to understand potential conflicts between them. Consider someone fearful of a dead spider next to him, although knowing too well there is nothing to be afraid of. According to the popular dual-process model of the mind, this is a case where our fast, automatic, and intuitive system 1 is in conflict with the more analytic and deliberate system 2 (Kahneman 2011). If this picture is right, where are appraisals supposed to be located? At one point, Kalisch et al. offer a functional definition of appraisal as a state that causes an emotional response given a stimulus. This suggests that appraisals are more closely related to system 1. (This is not to say that system 2 reasoning cannot lead to emotions.) Perception of the dead spider triggers a highly negative appraisal of danger, which causes the emotion of fear. But presumably it is sometimes possible for system 2 to override such appraisals, as when the subject forces himself to remain next to the spider. This suggests there is a different kind of evaluation of the situation at work, perhaps corresponding to the consciously available judgment that it is perfectly safe. It is not clear whether Kalisch et al. will regard this evaluation as an appraisal, as it does not seem to generate any emotion stronger than the fear. (So I am not sure whether their discussion of competing appraisals in interference inhibition applies here). Apart from the present example of a positive evaluation overriding a negative appraisal, it also is possible to have negative evaluations overriding positive appraisals, as when we successfully resist temptations. But if these evaluations can alter behavior and change exposure to stressors, they constitute a different causal pathway that can affect resilience independently of the appraisal mechanism.
Of course, we can expand the term appraisal to include such evaluations. But this might mean severing the essential link between appraisals and emotions. Also, given the very different nature of these two types of appraisals, it might be more accurate to speak of a dual-mechanism model of resilience. Obviously, the dual-process model of the mind still is evolving and not without its critics. But given that Kalisch et al. are interested in pursuing psycho-biological mechanisms, I think it is not premature to see whether the model helps us clarify the concept and functional role of an appraisal.
According to Kalisch et al. there is a single general resilience mechanism that protects against the adverse effects of stress. The key mechanism consists of a positive appraisal style, and it mediates all other known resilience factors. I find their framework very fruitful in thinking about the relationship between appraisals and resilience. In this commentary, I focus on the special role that knowledge plays in promoting resilience and see whether it helps us understand and evaluate their proposal.
Knowledge obviously can affect appraisal style, as a person might feel more positive about an aversive situation if she knows how to overcome it. Presumably a difference in knowledge by itself, however, does not necessitate a difference in appraisal style. So let us imagine two similar subjects with exactly the same appraisal style. Given identical stimuli, they would have appraisals of the same strength, and emotional responses of the same valence. (They also can have the same dispositions when it comes to reappraisals and interference inhibition.) But suppose one of them knows more about how to achieve her goals, and has better metacognitive knowledge about her own weaknesses and motivators. Using her knowledge, she is more skillful in avoiding temptations, overcoming obstacles, and maneuvering herself into situations that trigger positive appraisals. Consequently, she encounters fewer stressors and is more resilient than her counterpart in the long run. But their appraisal tendencies are supposed to be identical. If this is right, knowledge as a promoter of success is a powerful individual factor that can enhance resilience without altering appraisal style.
In fact, we might go further and suggest that the protective function of a positive appraisal style is not without qualification, and needs to be moderated by knowledge. Although elevated positive emotions might serve important protective and motivational functions, it is also possible that unrealistic expectations can increase the likelihood of failures and frustrations, and make them more difficult to cope with. Positive valence has been linked to more-optimistic perception of risk (Johnson & Tversky Reference Johnson and Tversky1983), which can lead to failure to take precautions or engagement in risky behavior. For example, an athlete who is wildly confident of his ability and downplays pain and other danger signs is susceptible to burnout and serious injury. This can exacerbate stress and depression later on. More generally, human beings are prone to cognitive biases, such as overestimating their own competence (Kruger & Dunning Reference Kruger and Dunning1999) and being too optimistic about the future (Helweg-Larsen & Shepperd Reference Helweg-Larsen and Shepperd2001). It is worth noting that individuals afflicted by mania have abnormally intense positive emotions, but the condition is associated with dysfunctional behavior and heightened irritability (Gruber et al. Reference Gruber, Mauss and Tamir2011). In short, positive appraisals and resilience need not have a straightforward monotonic relationship.
The underlying point is the familiar Aristotelian idea that actions and feelings should display moderation and appropriateness. Interestingly, Aristotle argued that not all pleasures are worth having, because they interfere with one another. Choosing the right pleasures is based not on the pleasures themselves, but with reference to the goodness and badness of the activities they are associated with. Similarly, positive appraisals are not all equally worth having for the sake of resilience. Resilience is better promoted not by inflating positive appraisals, but by using knowledge to calibrate appraisal valence that is appropriate to the situation, making it more effective to achieve a goal or remove a stressor. Given the interaction between knowledge and appraisals, I am not sure why the latter should be regarded as the more central resilience mechanism.
The connection between knowledge and appraisals also raises questions about how to understand potential conflicts between them. Consider someone fearful of a dead spider next to him, although knowing too well there is nothing to be afraid of. According to the popular dual-process model of the mind, this is a case where our fast, automatic, and intuitive system 1 is in conflict with the more analytic and deliberate system 2 (Kahneman 2011). If this picture is right, where are appraisals supposed to be located? At one point, Kalisch et al. offer a functional definition of appraisal as a state that causes an emotional response given a stimulus. This suggests that appraisals are more closely related to system 1. (This is not to say that system 2 reasoning cannot lead to emotions.) Perception of the dead spider triggers a highly negative appraisal of danger, which causes the emotion of fear. But presumably it is sometimes possible for system 2 to override such appraisals, as when the subject forces himself to remain next to the spider. This suggests there is a different kind of evaluation of the situation at work, perhaps corresponding to the consciously available judgment that it is perfectly safe. It is not clear whether Kalisch et al. will regard this evaluation as an appraisal, as it does not seem to generate any emotion stronger than the fear. (So I am not sure whether their discussion of competing appraisals in interference inhibition applies here). Apart from the present example of a positive evaluation overriding a negative appraisal, it also is possible to have negative evaluations overriding positive appraisals, as when we successfully resist temptations. But if these evaluations can alter behavior and change exposure to stressors, they constitute a different causal pathway that can affect resilience independently of the appraisal mechanism.
Of course, we can expand the term appraisal to include such evaluations. But this might mean severing the essential link between appraisals and emotions. Also, given the very different nature of these two types of appraisals, it might be more accurate to speak of a dual-mechanism model of resilience. Obviously, the dual-process model of the mind still is evolving and not without its critics. But given that Kalisch et al. are interested in pursuing psycho-biological mechanisms, I think it is not premature to see whether the model helps us clarify the concept and functional role of an appraisal.