In 1976 Richard Lazarus developed what was to become a highly influential model of stress. In his transactional model, cognitive appraisal is the key to understanding stress. Cognitive relates to thinking and appraisal means making a judgement when evaluating a potential stressor.
A person perceives a situation and gives meaning to it. Stress arises when a person perceives that a situation places a strain on them which is greater than their resources.
More generally, the Zoom-Out mindset correlates strongly with our cognitive reappraisal skills.
Our ability to step back from a default perspective and find the most helpful perspective is another way of expressing cognitive reappraisal as encoded in some of the Zoom-Out signposts and motto:
“All Perspectives are wrong but some are helpful”
– Zoom-Out Signpost
“Default perspectives can be overridden”
– Zoom-Out Signpost
“Zoom-Out to find the most helpful perspective”
– Zoom-Out Motto
You will find that some of the individual Zoom-Outs can help with “coping” with stress in the model as follows:
- Some Zoom-Outs are “emotion-focused” and help “change the relation to the situation”
- Some Zoom-Outs are “problem-focused” and help “change the situation itself”
- Some Zoom-Outs are both “emotion-focused” and “problem-focused”
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