The approach of the stress concept discussed by the authors conceptualizes it from a relational perspective person and environment, in which characteristics of the individual as an evaluator and the stressful event are important for understanding the stress process and its possible outcome. That is, psychological stress would be the product of the relationship between the individual and the event cognitively assessed as exceeding their personal resources or threatening their well-being.
The authors defined three types of cognitive assessment: primary, secondary and response. The primary corresponds to the perception of conflict as threatening, harmful or challenging. Secondary involves judging the type of coping that will be employed to deal with stress and the consequences of using it. In this sense, Lazarus and Folkman argue that no coping strategy is necessarily good or bad, but the situation to which this strategy is related will affirm its efficiency. The reassessment consists of a new judgment modified by the new information about the stressing event, environment or individual, being mediated by the effects of coping.