When we think about emotions that characterize psychological stress, we are likely to name negative emotions such as sadness, anxiety, and fear. During most of the twentieth century, positive emotions were essentially dismissed as unimportant or irrelevant, especially in relation to psychological stress.

Despite their low status, I have had a long-standing curiosity about positive emotions and whether they have any role in the stress process. I can't say exactly when I first thought about this question, but it was on my mind by the time I began my doctoral work with Richard Lazarus in 1975.

Professor Lazarus – or Dick, as he preferred to be called – was the author of a theoretical framework for the study of psychological stress that remains the foundation for much of the research in the field today. I joined Dick as co-author of an updated and expanded version of the theory in Stress, Appraisal, and Coping, published in 1984.

One of the central tenets of the theory is that stress is a dynamic process influenced by cognitive appraisals through which the individual determines whether ongoing interactions with the environment are relevant to valued goals, whether there are options for controlling interactions that have been or are potentially harmful to those goals, and, if so, whether the resources for controlling their outcomes are available.

Emotions are a part of the stress process from start to finish. Emotions express the nature of the appraisal at the outset of a stressful encounter – whether the situation signals harm or threat, or perhaps an opportunity for mastery and gain. Emotions also reflect changes in the stressful circumstances as the situation unfolds. And emotions are regulated by coping processes, especially when emotion intensity interferes with problem solving.

Although stress and coping research has typically focused on negative emotions, we did develop a few ideas about positive emotions while I was still a graduate student. We proposed, for instance, that such emotions could help restore psychological and physical resources by providing a break from distress. The chapter disappeared into relative obscurity for about fifteen years and then was rediscovered as the new field of positive psychology began to take hold in the late 1990s.