According to Lazarus (1991) emotion is a disturbance that occurs in the following order: 1. Cognitive appraisal—the individual assess the event cognitively, which cues the emotion. 2. Physiological changes—the cognitive reaction triggers biological changes such as increased heart rate or pituitary adrenal response. 3. Action—the individual feels the emotion and chooses how to react. Lazarus defined emotions as follows:
Emotions are complex, patterned, organismic reactions to how we think we are doing in our life long efforts to survive and flourish and to achieve what we wish for ourselves. Emotions are like no other psychosociobiological construct in that they express the intimate personal meaning of what is happening in our social lives and combine motivational, cognitive, adaptational, and physiological processes into a single complex state involving several levels of analysis. (1991, p. 6)