Appraisals...
Lisa does not typically
engage in distorted primary cognitive appraisals of events which would go
against her character’s nature, and probably, against the very point of the show’s authors
that a child can have more functional appraisals of social experiences than adults,
and better emotional responses. In fact, this is also the storyline of one episode
wherein Lisa experiences sadness with no apparent reasons. She has the blues.
Before dropping her off at school, Lisa’s mother, Marge, advises her daughter to swallow
her sadness and be all smiles if she wanted to be accepted by her peers at the elementary
school. Coming from her mother, that is a poor first appraisal of Lisa’s sadness
(not caused by her lack of popularity with peers), and simply, bad parenting.
Acting on her mother’s insensitive advice, Lisa tries hard to smile while feeling
really in low spirits. Fortunately, her mother turns around, opens the car’s
door, and invites Lisa’s back in, rushing away from the school. The mother seems
to have undergone herself a second appraisal of the situation (her daughter’s
sadness), and as a result she realized that Lisa’s locus of sadness was internal, and that
hiding her emotions was counterproductive and just wrong.
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