Schachter and Singer Theory and Features of Emotions, Slides of Social Psychology of Emotion

Download Schachter and Singer Theory and Features of Emotions and more Slides Social Psychology of Emotion in PDF only on Docsity! Cognitive, social and physiological determinants of emotional state October 2012 1 Schachter & Singer (1962) Is emotion cognitive, physiological or behavioural? How do I feel? 5  Which cues, internal or external, permit a person to label and identify his own emotional state? We usually would consider:  Mental/Physical states  Environment What is ‘emotion’ exactly? 6  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) Aim and Nature 7 Aim: “To test, experimentally, 3 propositions regarding the interaction between physiological and cognitive factors in the experience of emotion” 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 as such. METHOD/ DESIGN 11  184 pp – male 1st year university(of Minnesota) Ψ students  3 IVs:  Physiological arousal  Cognitive explanations  Emotion-inducing situations  DV: Emotions – self-feedback & observations Procedure 12  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 Procedure 15  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 arousal and appropriate explanations? Procedure / Expectations 16  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. Procedure / Two-factor theory 142-143 17 Social and cognitive influences http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmJ6wwKMNHM&feature=related 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 No Euphoria Anger *Random allocation of participants. What type of experimental design is this? (Evaluation point) 21  Why no “Epi Mis / Anger” condition?  “This was originally conceived as a control condition and it was felt that its inclusion in the Euphoria condition alone would be enough.” Procedure 143 22  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?) 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 but higher than Epi Informed Results  Anger Participants were probably afraid to admit irritation to the experimenter’s face. Condition Mean Epi Ignorant Little but more than Epi Informed Little Placebo Little Epi Misinformed Little Result ‘problems’ 27  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!?!) 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  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. Applications and implications 40  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 Some videos... ¢ http://www. youtube.com/watch/feature=endscreen&v=G 974chDqpQQ&NR=1 © http://www. youtube.com /watch?v=BLivODBodTk