Review by Tim Knepper, Fall, 2001
Schachter, S.; Singer, J. E. 1962. “Cognitive, Social, and Psychological Determinants of Emotional States.” Psychological Review 69: 379-399.
A classic study on the effect of set and setting on emotional experience that has generated much debate.
Subjects were administered either epinephrine (adrenaline) or a placebo within the context of a purported test of the effects of a vitamin compound on vision. The subjects in the experimental group were further divided into three groups: The first group was (truthfully) told what physiological effects to expect (increased respiration and heart rate, slight muscle tremors, and an “edgy” feeling); the second group was (un-truthfully) told to expect the physiological effects of numbness, itching and perhaps a headache; and the third group was given no information whatsoever concerning physiological effects. “Stooges” were then placed in each of these three groups (as well as in the control group) as a means of offering “contextual cues” to the participants (the stooges reacted with either euphoria or anger). Results of the study were as predicted: Subjects in both the control group and the group that had been given correct information regarding anticipated effects did not use contextual cues to label their emotions; but, on the other hand, subjects in both the misinformed group and the uninformed group tended to interpret their emotions as congruent with the contextual cues – as euphoric when the stooges acted euphoric, and as angry when the stooges acted angry. “Hence, Schachter and Singer argued that, given a situation of unanticipated physiological arousal, external cues (in this case, the stooges’ feigned emotional behavior) influence the labeling of what emotion is occurring – angry, happy, or sad, depending upon the context for unanticipated physiological arousal” (Hood et al., The Psychology of Religion: An Empirical Approach, 193). Moreover, “the importance for a theory of religious experience is that physiological processes per se cannot account for emotional experiences; cognitions must also occur, at least in ambiguous circumstances” (Ibid.).
The information on this page is copyright ©1994-2005, Wesley Wildman (basic information here), unless otherwise noted. If you want to use ideas that you find here, please be careful to acknowledge this site as your source, and remember also to credit the original author of what you use, where that is applicable. If you want to use text or stories from these pages, please contact me at the feedback address for permission.