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Two-factor theory of emotions: the person must experience physiological arousal and there must be a cognitive interpretation to label the arousal as a specific emotion.
When someone experiences an emotion, physiological arousal occurs and the person uses the immediate environment to search for cues to label the physiological arousal.
This was a laboratory experiment as the environment in which the participants were tested was not comparable to an everyday situation.
It was a highly standardized procedure and all participants were exposed to the same environment with a scripted response from the stooge.
This experiment is an example of an independent groups design as participants only took part in one of the seven groups.
There was also a control group who were not injected with epinephrine but a saline solution.
To test the reliability of these measures two observers coded their observations independently. The observers completely agreed on the coding of 88% of the behavior they saw. (inter-observers reliability)?
184 male students taking classes in introductory psychology at the University of Minnesota
Received course credit for taking part in the study.
The university health records of all participants were checked prior to the experiment to ensure that no harmful effects would result from the injections.
When the participants arrived at the laboratory the experimenter told them that the aim of the experiment was to test the effects of vitamin supplements on vision asked if the participants would mind receiving a suproxin injection (1 participant did not agree)
A doctor then entered the room, repeated these instructions, took the participant’s pulse and injected the participant with ‘Suproxin’ .
The participants were actually injected with either adrenalin or a placebo (saline solution).
The dosage that the participants were injected with should have caused them to experience the side effects within 3 to 5 minutes and these could last up to an hour.
Those participants who were injected with adrenalin were then put into one of three experimental conditions: informed, ignorant or misinformed.
The fourth condition consisted of participants who had received the placebo injection.
Participants in the informed condition were told that they could expect side effects such as ‘your hand will start to shake, your heart will start to pound, and your face may get warm and flushed’. This was given so that the participants have an explanation for their feelings.
In the misinformed condition the side effects told to the participants were that ‘your feet will feel numb, you will have an itching sensation over parts of your body, and you may get a slight headache’. These were not the side effects for adrenaline. This ways the participants do not have an explanation for the actual side effects of he injection.
The participants in the ignorant condition were told that they would experience no side effects from the injection. These participants will not have an explanation for their feelings.
The doctor left and the experimenter returned with a stooge who was introduced as another participant.
The experimenter said that both had taken the Suproxin injection and would take 10 minutes for absorption, after which they would both be given the same tests of vision.
Participants were then exposed to one of two emotional states: euphoria or anger. The stooge never knew which condition(informed, misinformed or ignorant) any participant was in.
The experimenter told the participant they could use the stationary, which were rough paper, rubber bands or pencils, if they wanted to.
The waiting room had been in a state of disarray and the stooge made icebreaker comments and played with the items, folders and hula hoops.
The stooge suggested that the participant join in, and the stooge played with the things.
‘Initiates new activity’ was operationalized as If the participant gave creative euphoria. That is, they initiated euphoric behavior outside of the stooge’s routine. Therefore, the behavior had to be one that had never been seen by the participant (from the stooge).
The experimenter introduced a stooge and explained that it was necessary to wait 20 minutes to let the Suproxin enter the bloodstream and that the participants had to complete a questionnaire during this time.
The stooge was instructed to create a feeling of anger in the room and this was achieved through a variety of comments that he made as the 20 minutes passed:
‘…it’s unfair for them to give you shots’
‘This really irritates me’
‘The hell with it!’
‘I’m not wasting any more time’
These increased in intensity and were linked with the questions in the questionnaire.
As the participants worked through the questionnaire the questions became more personal, and the stooge became increasingly irate in his behavior.
The stooge crumpled up the questionnaire at the end and stomped out of the room.
The experimenter returned to the room, took their pulses, and told them there was one final questionnaire that considered their physical responses to the Suproxin.
This was used as the self-report measure for the dependent variable.
They were debriefed and told the reason for the deception.
The experimenter swore participants to secrecy to protect future runs.
If a person is aroused with no immediate explanation, they will describe their feelings in terms of the cognitions available.
When an individual is aroused and has an explanation, they won't label their feelings in terms of the cognition available.
If an aroused person is in a situation which in the past could have made them emotional, they would be emotional again.
1 participant did not agree to the injection. 11 people had their data excluded due to suspicion. 5 had no physiological arousal to the injection so their data was excluded, and in the end, there were 169 participants left.
Participants who received adrenaline were significantly more sympathetically aroused (showed by pulse rate and self-rating) compared to the placebo participants.
Making them take part in just the euphoric condition still allows us to make an evaluation of the impacts, plus, it helps save time.
In all the adrenaline conditions, participants’ pulse rate increased, whereas the pulse rate for the placebo group decreased.
From the self-report measure, the euphoric misinformed group was the happiest. Euphoria ignorant group was the second happiest. The informed group was the least happy as they had an explanation for what they were feeling.
Participants in the anger ignorant condition were the angriest, and those in the placebo group were the second angriest.
Their behavior was observed through a one-way mirror and the behavior matched their self-report.
An aroused person with no explanation for the arousal describes their feelings in terms of the cognition available.
Individuals do not explain arousal by only looking at the behavior of those around them. They use past experiences to explain arousal.
It was a highly controlled laboratory experiment, as the same experimental rooms were used, and the stooge had given scripted responses. Participants were randomly allocated to different conditions. All participants were deceived, and the double-blind technique was used.
Quantitative data collected can be easily analyzed and used to compare results across two conditions.
The sample consisted of university students so participant variables may distort findings. This makes results less valid.
The sample only had male participants thus, the study is less generalizable as females may experience emotions differently.
No assessment was made of the participant's mood before the injection; thus, it reduces validity.
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