Reappraisal
A mental strategy where you reinterpret a situation's meaning to change how you feel about it—shifting the story your mind tells rather than suppressing the emotion.
A cognitive emotion-regulation technique in which a person reframes or reinterprets the meaning of a situation, thought, or memory to alter its emotional impact. Rather than avoiding or suppressing feelings, reappraisal involves changing how you think about an event—for example, viewing a critical comment as helpful feedback instead of rejection. It is considered an adaptive, flexible coping strategy supported by neuroscience research.
What this means in real life
A student receives critical feedback on an essay. Instead of thinking 'I'm a failure,' they reframe it as 'The teacher cares enough to help me improve,' which reduces shame and motivates revision rather than avoidance.
What it isn’t
Reappraisal is not positive thinking or denial—it's not pretending bad things are good. It's also not suppression; you're not pushing feelings down, but genuinely shifting how you interpret the situation's meaning.
Commonly misused online
Social media often conflates reappraisal with 'just think positive' or 'toxic positivity,' missing that genuine reappraisal requires honest reframing of actual facts, not fantasy or forced optimism.