Schachter & Singer (1962)
Cognitive, social and physiological determinants of
emotional state
October 2012
1
Is emotion cognitive, physiological or
behavioural?
How do you feel?
Subjective
experience
Physiological
changes
Associated
behaviour
Components of emotion:
1. Mental/cognitive/subjective experiences
2. Physiological/physical/endocrine/neural changes
3. Associated behaviour
 How much control do you have over these? None? Some? Total?
3
Features of emotion
1.
Cognitive appraisal of the
situation: the emotional response
appears when we signify events as
relevant to our goals.
Body’s external reaction
3. Overt behaviour
4. Facial expressions
2.
*None of these is a necessary condition for
emotional experience.
How do I feel?
 Which cues, internal or external, permit a person to label and
identify his own emotional state?
We usually would consider:
 Mental/Physical states
 Environment
5
What is ‘emotion’ exactly?
 Possible alternative views:
 Emotion without cognitive appraisal 
 Emotion without physiological arousal 
 Conventional view:
 Two-factor theory (Schachter) – cognitive and physiological
are necessary and sufficient. Neither on its own is sufficient.
 (aka cognitive labelling theory)
6
Aim and Nature
Aim:
“To test, experimentally, 3 propositions regarding the
interaction between physiological and cognitive factors
in the experience of emotion”
7
Hypothesis
There were 3 hypotheses tested:
1. If an individual experiences physiological
arousal with no inmediate explanation
he will label the state and describe it in
terms of the cognitions available.
* Same state could receive different labels
depending on the cognitive aspects of the
situation.
Hypothesis
2. If an individual experiences
physiological arousal for which
he/she has a completely appropriate
explanation, he/she will label this
state accordingly.
i.e. “My grandmother passed away / I
had an injection”.
Hypothesis
3. Given the same circumstances, an
individual will react emotionally, or
describe his/her feelings as emotions,
only if he/she has physiological
arousal
ie. Arousal is
necessary for
emotion to be
experienced a
such.
METHOD/ DESIGN
 184 pp – male 1st year university(of Minnesota) Ψ students
 3 IVs:
 Physiological arousal
 Cognitive explanations
 Emotion-inducing situations
 DV: Emotions – self-feedback & observations
11
Procedure
 Fake aim: “Study of the effects of vitamin compounds (Suproxin)
on vision”
 “Would you mind having an injection of Suproxin (made up
name) to look at the effects of vitamins on vision?” (1pp of 185
declined)
 “Suproxin” was actually adrenaline (injection called epinephrine
in US) OR a placebo
12
What does adrenaline do?
 Causes similar effects to the arousal of the autonomic
nervous system (ANS – “fight or flight”). Starts after 3-5
mins, lasts 15-30 mins.
 Increases blood pressure
 Increases heart rate
 Increases blood sugar
 Increases respiration
 Increases blood flow to muscles & brain
 Decreases blood flow to skin (feels cold)
 Palpitations
 Tremors
 Flushing
13
Video
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyP8L3qTW9Q&feat
ure=related
Procedure
 1st IV: Physiological arousal
 4 experimental conditions:
 Epinephrine ignorant experimenter said nothing about side effects
 Epinephrine informed participant was told about actual side effects,
reinforced by the doctor who gave injection.
 Epinephrine misinformed some patients experience numb feet,
itching, headache (doctor confirmed)
 Placebo: saline solution. Told nothing.
 What would you expect in each condition, in terms of physiological
15
arousal and appropriate explanations?
Procedure / Expectations
 2nd IV: The extent to which participants had an
appropriate* explanation of their bodily state.
 Epi Ign – physio. arousal without explanation, only current situation
 Epi Inf – physio. arousal with explanation
 Epi Mis – physio. arousal with inappropriate explanation
 Placebo – no physio. arousal, cognitions (thoughts) are the only
influence.
* Appropriate: they knew precisely what they would feel and why.
16
Procedure / Two-factor theory
142-143
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmJ6wwKMNHM&feature=related
Social and cognitive
influences
17
Procedure
143
 3rd IV: Situations from
which explanatory cognitions
could be derived.
a) Euphoria  after the injection, the doctor left the room and the
experimenter returned with stooge (introduced as another
participant)
 “Both of you had Suproxin. Wait for 20 minutes till vision test.”
 Stooge: basketball game, hula hoop, paper planes)
18
b) Anger: The same as euphoria but
they were asked to wait for 20
minutes answering a
questionnaire.
Stooge: Complaining about
injections, unfair. The
questionnaire was increasingly
personal and insulting. Stooge
got increasingly angry with
comments, ripped the paper and
left the room.
In summary… 7 conditions
CONDITION
AROUSAL
COGNITIVE
EXPLANATION
EMOTION
INDUCING
Epi. Ignorant
Yes
None
Euphoria
Anger
Epi. Informed
Yes
Correct
Euphoria
Anger
Epi. Misinformed Yes
Incorrect (suggestion)
Euphoria
Placebo
No
Euphoria
No
Anger
*Random allocation of participants.
What type of experimental design is this?
(Evaluation point)
 Why no “Epi Mis / Anger” condition?
 “This was originally conceived as a contro
condition and it was felt that its inclusion
in the Euphoria condition alone would be
enough.”
21
Procedure
143
 DV: Emotional response
 Measured in two ways:
 1. Researcher’s standardised
observations one way mirror. (Did
the P join the stooge in the euphoric
games/agree with the angry stooge?)
 2. Self-report questionnaires: scores.
(ie. How angry/irritated were you?)
22
RESULTS
What do you think that happened?
1. Effects of the injections on
bodily state
 All participants who received injections reported higher
levels of arousal than the placebo ones.
24
2. Effects on the manipulations of
emotional states
Mean self ratings and observed behaviour in order from higher
to lower:
 Euphoria
Condition
Mean
Epi Ignorant
Significantly higher than Epi inf
Epi Misinformed
Significantly higher than Epi inf
Placebo
Less than
Epi Informed
but higher than
Results
 Anger
Condition
Mean
Epi Ignorant
Little but more than
Epi Informed
Little
Placebo
Little
Epi Misinformed
Little
Participants were probably afraid to admit irritation to the
experimenter’s face.
Result ‘problems’
 All results non-significant
 Placebo group:
 Assumed “placebo = no arousal”
 BUT any injection is a dramatic event
 Some Mis & Ign also linked injection to arousal (design: to
exp arousal w/o obvious cause!?!)
27
Conclusions
 For anger and euphoria: Epi mis and Epi Ign were higher than Epi
informed in line with predictions.
 Placebo results were ambiguous
• Impossible to evaluate unambiguously the effects of physiological
arousal.
• For both emotions  placebo showed sign for sympathetic arousal and
then more anger
• *Sympathetic arousal accompanies an increase in emotional level.
• Both sympathetic arousal and appropriate cognition are necessary for the
experience of emotion
Methodological issues
 Schachter & Singer know that the “placebo” results are troublesome.
 Even though the epi ign groups weren’t told an explanation, they were given an
injection anyway!
 An injection is, in itself, an arousing situation
anxiety
 Epi mis and Epi ign could anyway attribute their state to the injection reduce
influence of stooge
Methodological issues
 They removed the info from participants
“self-informed” with no emotion
“experimental artefacts”.
 Then, differences became significant. A lot
more for ignorants than placebo
 So, the experiment on its own does not
support the hypotheses (especially hyp.1)
Methodological issues
 Aditional problems (Hildegard et al)
a) Epinephrine does not affect everyone in the same way
b) No assessment was made of participant’s mood before the
injection.
c) How comparable are arousal states caused by drugs v/s real life
emotions?
Theoretical issues
 Cognitive labelling theory (Schachter & Singer):
Assumes that the physiological arousal associated to different
emotional states is esentially the same controversial
Do we physically feel the same when we are angry, stressed, sad,
happy or amazed?
Theoretical issues
 There were different theories according to this:
 James-Lange theory (1890):
"the bodily changes follow directly the perception of the
exciting fact, and that our feeling of the same changes as they
occur is the emotion"
• Physiological arousal is sufficient for emotional experience.
i.e. we’re afraid because we run; we’re angry because we hit
Theoretical issues
 Cannon-Bard theory (1929): the opposite
“The same visceral changes occur in every different emotional
states.”
 Levenson (1994): It’s a myth that every emotion is
autonimically (physiologically) different. Some emotions
(behaviourally similar) share some features.
We cannot draw conclusions about the specificity of
bodily response.
 Pinel (1993): Intermediate position between common
response and totally different response.
Theoretical issues
 Dalgleish (1998): there is good evidence to support James-
Lange.
Physiological arousal is only necessary and not sufficient.
Emotional experience is affected by how arousal is
interpreted.
In this experiment, participants weren’t aware of the source of
emotion. In real life, usually we are.
Even here we need cognitive analysis.
Schachter & Singer: the quantitative aspect doesn’t require
cognitive analysis, but the qualitative, does.
Subsequent research
 Are environmental cues easily
accepted as to infererence with our
feelings as Schachter said?
 Several studies concluded
…understanding the unexplained
arousal is more complex than just
intaking cues from the inmediate
environment.
 We often think of past experiences
in which we felt like this doesn’t
show why we feel like this.
Subsequent research
 Arousal is more likely to be interpreted negatively anxiety.
 Not easy to label one or other emotion.
 Real impact of the adrenaline experiment:
Revived the old idea that emotions might be cognitive interpretations of
situations.
Subsequent research
 Missing from cognitive labelling
theory: what caused the emotion
in the first place?
 Cognitive appraisal theorists:
highlight the importance of
cognitive appraisal!
 Appraisal: evaluation of the
potential harm/benefit of a
situation.
Applications and implications
 Insufficient evidence for: every emotion has distinct ANS
activity
 Insufficient evidence for: ANS responds identically to all
emotional stimuli
 Cognitive labelling theory: physiological arousal is necessary but
not sufficient
 A cognitive appraisal of a situation is necessary
39
Applications and implications
 Attributions of emotions are malleable
 Clinical application: anxiety disorders.
 Reattribute anxiety arousal to less threatening sources (e.g. from
‘hostile world’ to ‘just my heart racing’)
 The misattribution paradigm / reattribution treatment
40
Some videos…
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=G
974chDqpQQ&NR=1
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLiv0DBodTk