Richard Lazarus

A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Lazarus as the 80th most cited psychologist of the 20th century.

Lazarus' cognitive-mediational theory maintained that the interaction between emotion-eliciting conditions and coping processes affect the cognitions that drive emotional reactions.

[2] For example, the degree of a perceived threat affects an individual's emotional and psychological response to such life events in the future.

Before emotion occurs, he argued, people make an automatic, often unconscious, assessment of what is happening and what it may mean for them or those they care about.

He was perhaps best known for his work with Susan Folkman on coping, gaining attention for studies that showed that patients who engaged in denial about the seriousness of their situation did better than those who were more "realistic."