Schachter and Singer Flashcards
What is the Aim of this study?
To test the Two-Factor theory of Emotion. They wanted to research if, given a state of physiological arousal for which a person does not have a proper explanation, cognitive factors can lead the person to describe their feelings with any number of emotional labels.
What is the background to this study?
Psychologists since the late 1800’s have been intrigued by how individuals use internal or external cues in identifying their own emotional state; A few early research suggested that cognitive factors could possibly influence our emotional state.; cognition can be defined as the mental processes of acquiring and processing knowledge and understanding through experiences, senses and thought; emotion can be defined as the body’s adaptive response to a particular situation.
It was suggested that an emotional state can be considered a function of a state of physiological arousal and of a cognition appropriate to this state of arousal.
key words to use here: Adrenalin, flight or fight response and nervous system.
They suggest that emotional experience comes from a combo of a physical state of arousal and a cognition that makes the best sense of the situation that person is in.
The Two-Factor Theory argues that we experience emotions as an interaction between physiological and psychological variables. In order to achieve that, they created a situation where some participants were physiologically aroused through an epinephrine injection and are put in either a happy or angry situations to investigate if those participants would look to the situation for context cues to explain their arousal.
What experiment was this? and why?
This was a laboratory experiment as the environment where the participants were tested was not comparable to an everyday situation.
comment on standardisation
it was a highly standardized procedure and all participants were exposed to the same environment with a scripted response from the stooge.
What are the two independent variables? and what were the seven conditions that resulted from this?
- the first concerned the knowledge about the injections: informed, misinformed or ignorant
- The emotional situation the participant was placed into after the injection: euphoria or anger. There was also a CONTROL group who were not injected with epinephrine but a SALINE SOLUTION.
What experimental design is this study?
This is an example of independent groups design as participants took part in one of the seven groups.
What were the two key measures of the DV?
- Observational data that was recorded by two observers through a one way mirror during the emotional arousal element of the experiment. They had to measure to what extent the participant acted in a euphoric or angry way. The categories into which the behavior was coded in the angry condition was: agreed with a comment, disagreed with a comment, neutral to a comment, initiates agreement or disagreement, watches or ignores the stooge. In the Euphoric condition: joins in the activity, initiates a new activity, watches stooge or ignores stooge. To test the reliability of these measures, the observers coded their observations independently. The observers agreed on the coding of 88% of the behaviors they saw.
- The second was a self-report that the participants completed following the emotional arousal element of the research
What was the sample of this study?
- 185 participants
- All male college students taking classes in introductory psychology at University of Minnesota.
- Many of them received course credit for taking part in the study
- The university health records of all the participants were checked prior to the experiment to ensure that no harmful effects would result from the injections.
Procedure
- When they arrived, they were told that the aim of the experiment was to test the effects of vitamin supplements on vision.
- A doctor then entered the room, repeated the same instructions, took their pulse and then injected the participant with ‘Suproxin’.
- They were actually injected with either adrenalin or a placebo which was the saline solution. The dosage they were injected with should have caused them to experience the side effects within three to five minutes and these could last up to an hour.
- those who were injected with adrenalin were then put into any one of three experimental conditions: informed, misinformed or ignorant. The fourth condition was for those who received the placebo injection.
What were the participants in the informed condition told?
Those in the informed condition were told they would expect some side effects of the injection such as that their hand will start to shake, their heart will start to pound and their face may get warm or flushed. These were the actual side effects on the adrenalin so the participants would have an explanation for any feelings.
What were the participants in the misinformed condition told?
They were told that they could expect some side effects of the injection and these were that their feet will feel numb, some itching sensations over some parts of their body and a slight headache. These were not the actual side effects of the adrenaline injections so participants would not have any explanation for the actual side effects they would experience. This condition was introduced as a control condition.
What were the participants in the ignorant condition told?
They were told that they would experience NO SIDE EFFECTS from the injections which means therefore these participants would not have an explanation fro the actual side effects that they would experience as a result of the injection of adrenalin.
What happened after the doctor injected the participants with the injections?
The doctor left the room and the experimenter returned with a stooge which was introduced as another participant and the experimenter said that both had the Suproxin injection which would take 10 min to be absorbed in the bloodstream after which they would both be given the same vision tests
This was the point that either participants were exposed to one of two emotional states: euphoria or anger.
What happened in the Euphoria condition?
The experimenter left, adding that if they needed rough paper rubber bands or pencils, they should help themselves. The waiting room was arranged to look in a state of disarray.
When the experimenter left, the stooge introduced himself again and made ice-breaker comments.
He then began his routine of playing with items such as paper, rubber bands, hula hoops, pencils etc.
the stooge then suggested that the participant joined.The routine was standardized as far as possible. However, the stooge was never aware of which condition any particular participant was in.
What happened in the anger condition?
The experimenter introduced the stooge and explained that it was necessary to wait 20 min in order to allow the Suproxin to enter the bloodstream and that meanwhile, the participants had to complete a questionnaire.
The stooge was instructed to create a feeling of anger in the room and achieved that by making comments that he made along the 20 minutes.The comments increased in intensity and were linked with the questions in the questionnaire. The questions also started getting more personal and the stooge became increasingly irate in his behavior.
