Psychology: Physiological psychology: Cognitive, social and physiological determinants of emotional state

Psychology: Physiological psychology: Cognitive, social and physiological determinants of emotional state

Author: Schachter and Singer (1962)

Key term: Emotion

Background/context: 

• Earlier theories suggested that emotion was only based on physiological factors.
  Different theories of emotion.
• Two factor theory (cognitive labeling theory): Schachter believed that emotion is a result of both physiological and psychological (cognitive) components. This involves the individual giving reasoning to their physiological arousing and labelling it as a certain emotion.

Aim/Hypothesis: To test these 3 propositions:

1. When someone experiences a state of physiological arousal with no immediate explanation, they will label it depending on the physical cognitions available. So the same state of arousal (eg. Increased heartbeat) could receive different labels (eg. Joy/anger) depending on the physical aspects of the situation (eg. a scary animal or your boyfriend)
2. If someone experiences a state of physiological arousal for which they have an explanation for, they will label it appropriately and not be affected by other physical factors.
3. In the same circumstances, someone will describe their feelings as emotions, but only to the extent that they feel a state of physiological arousal.

Method: Laboratory experiment with observation and self-report.

Variables: 

Independent variables:

All participants were told they were being tested for the effect of Suproxin on vision, but Suproxin is a fictional made up drug and they were actually being injected with Epinephrine.

Epinephrine is a drug which almost always perfectly mimics stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system: increase in blood pressure, slight increase in heart rate,  slight increase in respiration. Major symptoms are palpitations, tremors and sometimes a flushed feeling. These effects usually begin 3-5 minutes after the injection and last for 15-20 minutes.

1. EPI INF (Epinephrine informed): Injected with epinephrine and told the real side effects (palpitations, tremors, warm feeling). Information was reinforced by a doctor.
2. EPI IGN (Epinephrine ignored): Injected with epinephrine and experimenter said nothing about side effects. Doctor said the injection was mild and harmless and would have no side effects.
3. EPI MIS (Epinephrine misinformed): Injected with epinephrine and told they would feel side effects from the Suproxin such as feet feeling numb, itchiness and a slight headache, that would last 15-20 minutes. None of these are the actual symptoms.
4. Placebo (control): Injected with Saline solution (salt solution) which have no side effects and were not told anything. 

Explanatory cognitions:

1. Euphoria: Immediately after injection experimenter left and the doctor returned with a stooge (actor), who he said was another participant. They were brought to a room and told they had to wait 20 minutes while the Suproxin kicked in, and the doctor apologized for the messy room. The stooge began acting according to a script consisting of 15 behaviors such as making paper airplanes, playing with the hula hoop, initiating a basketball game, etc).
2. Anger: Began the same way as the euphoric condition, but the participant and stooge were asked to spend the 20 minutes filling out a questionnaire. Before starting, stooge would state it was unfair to not be told about the injection beforehand. The 5 page questionnaire starts of innocent but grows more and more intrusive and personal. The stooge makes standardized comments about the questionnaire, becoming more argumentative and angry. Eventually, when he gets to the question asking about frequency of sexual intercourse, he rips up his paper and storms out the room.

Participants in EPI INF, EPI IGN and the placebo all experimented one of the two euphoric or anger conditions. EPI MIS participants only experienced the anger conditions, making 7 conditions. 

Participants were randomly allocated to 1 of the 7 conditions.

Dependent variable: Participants emotional state: 

• Observation through a one way mirror during the experiment - eg. Would participant join in the euphoric stooge's games?
• Self-report on various measures after the experiment before the debriefing - eg. Questions such as "How irritated would you say feel at the present?"

Design; Independent groups - If a participant was to repeat any condition they would know the real aim of the experiment and respond falsely.

Participants and sampling technique: 184 males from the University of Minnesota. All had volunteered to be in a subject pool. They received 2 extra points in the final exam for every hour they took part in the experiment. All participants were cleared by the student health service to make sure the injection would not be harmful to them. 1 participant refused the injection,  11 participants had been very suspicious after the experiment and in 5 participants the epinephrine had no effect at all. So only 167 participants data was used for the findings.

Apparatus:

• Private room with a one way mirror 
• 'Suproxin' ie. epinephrine (adrenaline)
• Placebo ie. Saline solution
• Euphoria condition: paper, rubber bands, hula hoop, waste paper basket. 
• Anger condition: Questionnaire with intrusive questions

Controls:

• All participants given an injection
• All participants in each condition followed the same procedure
• The stooge repeated the same behaviour for each condition, saying and doing the same things at the same time, following a standardized script.
• Observations were conducted by two observers (inter-rater agreement was high).

Procedure:

1. Each participant was taken to the private room and given an injection of either epinephrine or saline solution .They were told they were injected with suproxin to test vision. 
2. If participant agreed, a doctor would come into the room and administer the injection. 
3. Participants given 1 of 3 sets of instructions depending on their allocated condition: EPI INF, EPI MIS or EPI IGN/placebo. 
4. Participant was then taken to another room and told to wait with another participant (actually a stooge) and told to wait for 20 minutes while the suproxin was absorbed into their bloodstream.
5. The stooge would act accordingly depending on the condition: euphoric or angry. 
6. Experimenter enters room and hands out questionnaire for 'feedback on effect of suproxin' (self report).
7. Experimenter debriefs participants (11 of the participants data was discarded because participants admitted they were very suspicious of the experiment). 

Data: Quantitative data was collected

• Observation: Objective data collected through one-way mirror by two observers, coded into categories. 
• 4 euphoria categories: joins in activity, initiates new activity, ignores stooge and watches stooge.
• 6 anger categories: agrees, disagrees, neutral, initiates agreement/disagreement, watches, ignores.
• Self-report of the participants emotional state on a 5 point scale. 0 meaning they did not feel that emotion and 5 meaning they extremely felt that emotion. Eg. "On a scale of 0-5, how irritated are you right now?"
• Two questions on the participant's physiological state from a scale of 0-4 eg. "Did you feel any tremors?".

Findings:

• Physiological response: Participants in the EPI condition experienced more physiological arousal than those in the placebo. The difference was significant.
• Euphoria self-report: Participants in the EPI MIS and EPI IGN rated themselves more euphoric than EPI INF.
• Euphoria observations: Same results as the self-report. EPI MIS had the most euphoric activity (22.56) and EPI INF had the lowest (12.72).
• Anger observations: EPI IGN had the highest anger score of 2.28. EPI INF had the lowest at -0.18.

Conclusion:

For someone to feel a certain emotion, a cognitive (situational) factor is needed along with the physical arousal. The two factor theory was proven to be accurate.

Strengths:

• Laboratory experiment - Many controls (eg. Stooge's standardized script and activities, what the experimenter said during the injection, what was injected, how behaviours were categorized) - Easy to replicate to test for reliability.
• Laboratory experiment - Many controls - Confidence that the stimuli provided to participants directly affected their emotion.

Weaknesses:

• All male students - cannot be generalized, females have different body chemistry therefore may feel emotions differently. Older people may also feel emotions differently, as with people from different cultures.
• Participants in placebo condition had a higher euphoric and anger condition than that of EPI INF, which is not in line with the theory. This may be because the injection itself can cause physiological arousal.
• Getting an injection is a dramatic event which could be a cognitive explanation for whatever physiological arousal participants felt and could cause physiological arousal. This makes the stooge less of an influence on their emotion.
• Epinephrine does not affect everyone in the same way.
• Low mundane realism - It is abnormal to be randomly given an injection then asked to sit in a room with a stranger who starts acting up. Therefore this experiment may be invalid since participants may feel differently in real life. 
• Mood was not tested before the injection - participants may have already been happy or angry before being put in the experiment.

Ethics:

• Deception: Participants were told they were receiving suproxin to test for vision and they were told the stooge was another participant, which are all untrue. 
• Harm: Participants were given an injection which could cause physical pain. They were also put in situations to deliberately make them happy or angry, therefore they did not leave the experiment in the same psychological state as they entered.