Py 101 CH 12.4
Most psychologists are convinced that motivation and emotion are closely linked. Both terms, in fact, derive from the Latin movere, meaning “to move.” Many conditions that are motivating also give rise to the experience of emotion. Suppose you’re thirsty and put change into a Coke machine. If the money gets stuck, blocking your goal, you’re likely to get frustrated and angry. The emotional experience, in turn, produces its own energizing effect on behavior—maybe you start screaming and kicking the machine (which may or may not help). It’s difficult to discuss the topic of motivation without also considering emotion.
As we discussed at the beginning of the chapter, emotions are complex psychological events that involve a mixture of reactions: (1) a physiological response (usually arousal), (2) an expressive reaction (distinctive facial expression, body posture, or vocalization), and (3) some kind of subjective experience (internal thoughts and feelings). Each of these components is shown in Figure 12.5.
Figure 12.5 The Composition of Emotion
Emotions are complex experiences that involve (1) a physiological response, (2) an expressive reaction, and (3) some kind of subjective experience.
Why experience emotions in the first place? Psychologists generally believe emotions help us adapt to rapidly changing environmental conditions. Emotions are powerful motivators of behavior—they help us prioritize our thoughts and force us to focus on finding problem solutions. Physiological arousal, for instance, prepares the body for fight or flight and helps us direct our actions in the face of danger. Through expressive behaviors, such as the characteristic facial grimace of anger, it’s possible to communicate our mental state instantly to others (see R. E. Jack & Schyns, 2017). Emotions can even stimulate social behaviors. People perform better and are more likely to help others when they feel happiness (Hoffman, 1986); people are also more likely to volunteer aid after doing something for which they feel guilt (J. M. Carlsmith & Gross, 1969).
Are There Basic Emotions?
Can you name all the important emotions? The English language is full of words, literally hundreds in fact, that relate to emotion. But are there hundreds of emotions, or just a basic few? This seems like a simple question, but it’s one that’s perplexed researchers for decades (Hess, 2017; Russell, 2003). To get a sense of the difficulty, try compiling your own list of basic emotions. While you’re at it, ask your friends and see how much you agree. Let’s see: anger, fear, joy … how about interest, loathing, jealousy, or distraction? Psychologists have been compiling their own lists for decades without general agreement.
If forced to choose, most people (including emotion researchers) agree on about a half-dozen. Most lists include anger, fear, happiness, and sadness (Ekman, 1999; Ortony & Turner, 1990). Researchers who believe these emotions are basic, or universal, argue convincingly that certain emotions, such as anger, increase the chances of survival. People also have no trouble recognizing expressions of anger, fear, sadness, and happiness in other people, through either facial expressions or emotional vocalizations (Sauter et al., 2010). Paul Ekman and his colleagues asked volunteers to match photographs of grimacing, smiling, or otherwise distinctive facial displays to a number of basic emotion labels. There was wide agreement on six fundamental emotions: happiness, surprise, fear, sadness, anger, and disgust combined with contempt (Ekman, 1992; Ekman & Friesen, 1986).
Facial Expressions and Culture
One of the signature characteristics of an emotion is a facial expression. Regardless of where you look in the world, people identify facial expressions with emotional states. For example, a furrowed brow and a square mouth with pursed lips tends to signify anger worldwide (Ekman & Friesen, 1975). Ekman and Friesen (1975) tested members of a rural, isolated culture in New Guinea. These people had no experience with Western culture, yet they correctly identified the emotions expressed in photographs of Caucasian faces. Similarly, when U.S. college students were later shown photos of the New Guinea people acting out various emotions, they too were able to identify the emotions with a high degree of accuracy. However, it’s not clear that emotion labels necessarily mean the same thing across cultures (Russell, 1994), and there do appear to be some cultural differences in emotion recognition (R. E. Jack et al., 2016).
Different emotions are often associated with particular facial expressions. Can you identify the emotion expressed in each of these photos?
Courtesy of Paul Ekman
The cross-cultural data encourage the view that the expression of emotion may have a biological or genetic origin. Babies show a wide range of emotional expressions at a very young age (Izard, 1994), and even babies who are born blind, or with both visual and hearing impairments, show facial expressions similar to sighted babies (Eibl-Eibesfeldt, 1973). It appears people may purse their lips and furrow their brow when they’re mad because these tendencies are built directly into the genetic code rather than having been learned. The idea that there are at least some universal facial expressions certainly makes adaptive sense because facial expressions are often excellent signals to others about our current internal state (Ekman & Keltner, 1997).
At the same time, the story is not as simple as it might seem. Facial expressions are clearly signals for emotion, but their interpretation also depends importantly on the context or situation (Barrett, 2017; Barrett et al., 2011). The same scowling face can be perceived as signaling anger, disgust, or even puzzlement depending on the situation. If the person is in danger, the expression will likely be seen as fear; but if the same expression is paired with something disgusting (e.g., a person looking at a decaying animal), it will be interpreted as an expression of disgust. This fits in well with the general account of perception that was outlined in Chapter 5. What we perceive is a product of the sensory signal (the facial expression) as well as our general expectation about what is “out there” (top-down processing). This guarantees that the same facial expression, depending on the circumstance, might be interpreted differently by different people (Gendron et al., 2018).
The Facial-Feedback Hypothesis
Feedback from the muscles in the face may even help influence the internal emotional experience. According to the facial-feedback hypothesis, muscles in the face deliver signals to the brain that are then interpreted, depending on the pattern, as subjective emotional states (Tomkins, 1962). Other researchers suggest there may be direct connections between expressions and physical changes in the brain. For example, smiling can alter the volume of air that is inhaled through the nose; these changes, in turn, can affect the temperature of the brain, which, in turn, might affect mood (McIntosh et al., 1997; Zajonc et al., 1993).
The facial-feedback hypothesis suggests an interesting possibility: If asked to adopt a particular facial expression artificially, will you experience a corresponding change in emotion? In fact, some kinds of forced smiling, frowning, or grimacing have been shown to modulate emotional reports in some cases (e.g., Soussignan, 2002). You can try this for yourself: Try forcing yourself to smile or grimace in an exaggerated way. Do you feel any different? Some therapists recommend that clients who are depressed literally force themselves to smile when they’re feeling depressed. Here’s another piece of evidence: People who have just received a facial injection of Botox®, which paralyzes certain muscles in the face, have shown changes in their responsiveness to emotional stimuli (Davis et al., 2010).
But the facial-feedback hypothesis has not fared well in recent replication efforts. For example, one preregistered study attempted to replicate the finding that holding a pen in one’s teeth, which forces a kind of smile, causes people to rate a cartoon as funnier (Strack et al., 1988). Seventeen laboratories participated in the replication project, and overall no support was found for the facial-feedback effect (Wagenmakers et al., 2016). On the other hand, a recent meta-analysis, which considered the results from 138 different studies, concluded that facial feedback can indeed influence emotional experience, although the effect is relatively small and variable (N. A. Coles et al., 2019).
How Convincing Is the Evidence?
The link among facial expressions, biology, and emotion suggests that certain emotions may be universal (Izard, 2007). But does the fact that people universally have facial expressions for fear, anger, or happiness mean that these emotions are somehow more primary or basic than others? Some psychologists think not. Remember, many psychologists disagree about which emotions belong on the basic list. Does interest, wonder, or guilt belong? How about shame, contempt, or elation? Each of these terms has been identified as basic by at least one prominent emotion researcher. The problem is that humans are capable of an enormous range of emotional experiences. Consider the differences among fear, terror, panic, distress, rage, and anxiety. It is clearly appropriate to use each of these terms in some circumstances and not in others. How can we explain a complex emotion such as terror? If it’s not a basic emotion, is it somehow manufactured in the brain by combining or blending more fundamental emotions such as fear, surprise, and possibly anger?
It may not be possible to explain human emotional experiences by combining a set of basic emotions. Rather than basic emotions, some argue, it may be better to think of basic responses that are shared by a wide variety of emotional experiences (e.g., Barrett, 2006). For example, as noted earlier, the furrowed brow commonly seen in anger is not exclusive to anger but also occurs when people are frustrated, puzzled, or even just working hard on a task. The furrowed brow may occur in any situation in which a person is somehow blocked from reaching a goal; its appearance, by itself, is not sufficient to conclude that the person is angry.
It may help to think about the analogy of human language. There are hundreds of different languages across the world, and each follows certain universal rules (relating to sound and word combinations). But it doesn’t make any sense to argue that some of these languages are more basic than others. Human languages are built up from basic components and share many features in common. Similarly, when people are in the grip of an emotion, they may experience many basic and universal conditions (such as a tendency to smile or frown, approach or avoid), but these are merely the components of emotion, not the emotions themselves (Russell, 2003; Turner & Ortony, 1992).
The Emotional Experience: Arousal
Psychologists may disagree about whether there are basic emotions, but everyone agrees about certain aspects of the emotional experience. Virtually all emotions, for instance, lead to physiological arousal. Muscles tense, heart rate speeds up, and blood pressure and respiration rates skyrocket. These emotional symptoms come from activity of the autonomic nervous system as it prepares the muscles and organs of the body for a fight-or-flight response. We usually experience emotions in situations that are significant for one reason or another—for instance, the car of a drunken driver swerves sharply into our path, or the sound of breaking glass from the basement window startles us awake. It’s adaptive for the body to react quickly in such cases, and the rapid onset of physiological arousal serves that function well.
But emotional arousal can have a negative side as well. Too much arousal can lead to a breakdown in behavioral, biological, or psychological functioning. Figure 12.6 shows the relationship that exists between level of arousal and task performance. Notice the pattern looks like an arch or an inverted U. For a given task, as arousal levels increase from low to moderate, performance generally rises. Some people perform better under pressure—the track star runs a little faster or jumps a little higher. You may well perform better on a test if the test is particularly important. But too much pressure, which causes too much arousal, causes a sharp drop-off in task performance. Did you have trouble thinking when you took the SAT? Too much emotional pressure creates a level of arousal that hurts rather than helps normal mental functioning.
Figure 12.6 Arousal and Task Performance
For a given task, performance tends to be best at intermediate levels of arousal. Too little or too much arousal often leads to a decrease in performance.
Understanding the relationship between arousal and performance has helped psychologists interpret behavior in a variety of situations. For example, as you know, people who witness crimes are sometimes inaccurate in their later recollections. One factor that contributes to the poor memory is the high level of arousal generated in crime scenes. If someone holds a gun to your head, your level of arousal is likely to block normal cognitive processing. You’re simply too aroused to process the details of the crime scene effectively. Moreover, as you’ll see in Chapter 13, the relationship between arousal and performance also helps us to understand how our behavior changes in the presence of other people—our performance is either facilitated or impaired when other people are around, perhaps because the presence of others changes our overall level of arousal.
The Emotional Experience: Subjective Reactions
Experiencing an emotion involves much more than a facial expression or a flood of physiological arousal. Your thoughts, your perceptions, and the things you notice in the environment all change when you experience an emotion. Even the acoustic patterns in your voice change in measurable ways (Kamiloğlu et al., 2020). But as we discussed earlier, it’s difficult to measure the internal experience accurately and reliably. After all, the emotional experience is by definition personal and subjective. We can ask someone what it feels like to be angry, happy, or scared, but the constraints of language restrict the answers we receive. Some cultures don’t even have a word in their language to describe the concept of an emotion. The Ifaluk people of Micronesia, for example, have only the word niferash, which roughly translates as “our insides” (Lutz, 1982; Matsumoto, 1994).
Anger
It is possible to study the conditions that lead to emotions. For example, in the case of anger, people have been asked to keep daily and weekly records, noting the specific situations that made them mad. Most people get angry at least several times a week (but to different degrees); some experience the emotion several times a day (Averill, 1983). There are individual differences among people, suggesting that one’s anger threshold may be an inherited biological trait (Veenstra et al., 2018). Anger clearly serves an adaptive function: It causes us to tackle our problems head on and express our grievances, and it also serves as a signal to others that they should change their ways or avoid interaction (Lench et al., 2016).
What causes anger? Not surprisingly, the causes are many (Berkowitz & Harmon-Jones, 2004). If you’re restrained in some way, physically or psychologically, you’re likely to get mad. More generally, people tend to get angry when their expectations are violated. If you’re counting on someone to act a certain way, and those expectations are violated, you’ll probably get mad. This is one of the reasons we often get angry at the ones we love. We tend to expect more from the people we love, which, in turn, increases the chances that our expectations will be violated. We also get angry when unpleasant things happen, even if it doesn’t involve the violation of an expectation. I bet you get mad when you trip over something on the sidewalk or bang your knee against a wall. Right? Physical pain, physically unpleasant situations, and major social stresses all reliably lead to anger.
Is the expression of anger healthy psychologically? Psychologists remain undecided about the benefits of venting anger or blowing off steam. On one hand, expressing your feelings may have a cathartic effect: The expression of anger can lead to an emotional release that is ultimately calming. On the other hand, getting physically angry could well increase the chances that you’ll get angry again (Novaco, 2016). When you express anger, and feel the calming effect that follows, you reinforce the anger response. Some psychologists have found that encouraging people to express their feelings of anger or hostility leads to more expressions or feelings of anger in the future (Bushman, 2002). Evidence suggests as well that people who punish a rule-violator end up feeling worse than those who don’t exact “revenge” (K. M. Carlsmith et al., 2008). The expression of anger can also lead to increased risk-taking and other kinds of self-defeating behavior. We’ll return to the effects of anger, specifically on stress and health, in Chapter 16.
iStockPhoto/fizkes
Happiness
Understanding that anger arises from violations of expectations also helps account for the experience of happiness. There has been a dramatic increase in the scientific study of happiness over the past several decades (psychologists used to focus primarily on negative emotions); there is even a thriving field called “positive psychology” that studies how and when happiness and well-being flourish (see Seligman, 2019). Perhaps not surprisingly, happiness is associated with a variety of positive outcomes, including better immune system functioning, longevity, gains in income, and success in marriage (see Myers & Diener, 2018). In general, people tend to gain or lose happiness as a result of the comparisons they make—either with others (a well-known tendency called social comparison) or with things or experiences from their past (Cacioppo & Gardner, 1999). People set standards for satisfaction, and they’re happy if those standards are maintained or surpassed. The trouble is that our standards are constantly changing—Eddie and Lucinda may be able to keep up with the Joneses next door, but there’s always the Mendenhalls down the street who just bought that new boat. Once people reach a certain level of satisfaction, they often form a new level, and then another, and never quite attain complete happiness.
Many psychological judgments, not just emotions, are linked to comparisons with some standard, or adaptation level. You learned in Chapter 5 that whether we will hear one tone as louder than another depends on how loud the standard tone was to begin with. Human judgments are relative—there’s no sense in which a tone is loud, a light is bright, or a person is happy or sad without answering the question, “Relative to what?” Even negative events can seem positive if they are placed in the right context. For example, arguing with a spouse is rated more positively if it’s preceded by the rating of an extremely negative event, such as a death in the family (Schwarz & Strack, 1999). A study of athletes at the 1992 Olympic Games revealed that bronze medal winners (third place) were happier than silver medal winners (second place); presumably, the bronze medalists focused on the accomplishment of winning a medal, whereas the silver medalists saw themselves as failing to reach gold (Medvec et al., 1995). If asked, most believe that people who have a severe disability, such as those with paraplegia, spend the majority of their time in a bad mood. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. The well-being of people with paraplegia tends to be normal most of the time—people adapt, even to the most horrific of circumstances (Kahneman, 2011).
The fact that happiness is relative helps to explain some phenomena that might seem a bit mysterious. Why is the couple who just won the multimillion-dollar lottery still bickering? Why is Ed, who recently succeeded in getting the most popular girl in class to hang out with him, now anxiously seeking the attention of someone else? How can that homeless man, with only scraps to eat and tattered clothes, wake up every morning with a smile on his face? Happiness is not some Holy Grail that can be sought and sometimes found—it’s an elusive and fickle condition that depends on constantly changing standards and comparisons.
Disgust
Usually included in the group of basic emotions is disgust, a marked aversion toward something distasteful (literally meaning “bad taste”). It’s easy to appreciate the adaptive value of this particular emotion, especially as a mechanism to make certain we select and reject the appropriate foods. The facial expression that typically accompanies disgust is itself an adaptive reaction to a potentially harmful substance. You wrinkle your nose, and your mouth drops open in a characteristic gape. Wrinkling the nose closes off the air passages, cutting off any offending odor; the gaping expression “causes the contents of the mouth to dribble out” (Rozin & Fallon, 1987, p. 24).
Yet there is a psychology to disgust that extends beyond its role in food rejection. To illustrate, suppose you come home one evening and find a cockroach nesting on your toothbrush. Is it conceivable that you would ever use that toothbrush again? Suppose I dropped it into boiling water for a while to ensure sterilization. Would you use it now? Probably not by choice. In a study by Paul Rozin and his colleagues, a dead but sterilized cockroach was dropped into a glass of juice and offered to thirsty subjects. Not surprisingly, few people showed any interest in drinking the juice, even though they knew the roach had been sterilized (Rozin et al., 1986). Most people are also reluctant to consume their favorite soup if they witness the bowl being stirred by a never-used comb or fly swatter (Rozin & Fallon, 1987).
iStockPhoto/fcafotodigital
The experience of disgust seems to be universal—appearing cross-culturally—but the emotion takes time to develop. For example, if children under age 4 are presented with what adults consider a disgusting odor (feces or synthetic sweat), they tend not to be bothered, or they may even react positively. Children under age 2, as any parent knows, are happy to put just about anything into their mouths, even “disgusting” objects. In one study, it was found that 62% of tested children under age 2 would put imitation dog feces in their mouth; 31% would mouth a whole, sterilized grasshopper (Rozin et al., 1986). Children simply have no conception that these objects are potentially harmful—they must learn what not to put in their mouths.
Many psychologists also believe that the emotion of disgust plays a role in our moral judgments—such as our views on abortion, animal cruelty, or whether it is okay to eat genetically modified food (e.g., Chapman & Anderson, 2013; S. E. Scott et al., 2016). In Chapter 4, we discussed how decisions about right and wrong, such as whether or not it’s ever appropriate for siblings to have sex, can be based on emotional “gut reactions.” Invoking a disgust reaction in people has been shown to affect subsequent judgments on these kinds of moral vignettes. In addition, people who score high on disgust sensitivity scales also show more sensitivity to certain judgments about morality (Wagemans et al., 2018).
Theories of Emotion: Body to Mind
Emotions are complex events. People subjectively experience happiness or sadness, but they also experience important changes in their body and on their face. Questions about how these various components interact have stumped emotion researchers for decades. For example, what exactly causes the body reaction? Is the arousal caused by the internal subjective experience, or are we happy or sad because our bodies have been induced to react in a particular way?
There are a number of possible explanations (for an overview, see Figure 12.7). The most natural argument is that the internal experience drives the physiological reaction. We tremble, gasp, and increase our heart rate because some event has caused us to become afraid. We feel fear, and our body reacts with physiological arousal. Surprisingly, this straightforward view of emotion has been rejected by emotion researchers for more than a century. William James (1890) saw the commonsense view as backward: “The more rational statement is that we feel sorry because we cry, angry because we strike, afraid because we tremble, and not that we cry, strike, or tremble because we are sorry, angry, or fearful” (p. 1066). Although James believed our interpretation of the situation also plays a role (Ellsworth, 1994; W. James, 1894), he was convinced that the body reaction occurs before the subjective experience of emotion rather than the other way around.
Figure 12.7 Four Views of Emotion
The commonsense view, largely rejected by psychologists, assumes that an environmental stimulus creates a subjective experience (fear), which in turn leads to a physiological reaction (arousal). The James–Lange theory proposes instead that the physical reaction drives the subjective experience. In the Cannon–Bard theory, the physical reaction and the subjective experience are assumed to be largely independent processes. In the two-factor theory, it is the cognitive interpretation and labeling of the physical response that drives the subjective experience.
Illustrated by Sarah Yeh
The James–Lange Theory
The idea that the body reaction drives the subjective experience of emotion is known as the James–Lange theory of emotion. Lange is coupled with James because Danish physiologist Carl Lange proposed a similar idea at roughly the same time as James. Why reject the commonsense approach in favor of such a counterintuitive view? Neither James nor Lange presented much evidence in support of this account (other than personal impressions). However, some significant predictions can be derived from their view. For instance, imagine we could somehow reduce or eliminate significant body reactions. The James–Lange theory predicts we should lose the corresponding experience of emotion. To test this idea, interviews have been conducted with people suffering from spinal cord injuries. Because of nerve damage, these people either have lost feeling in major portions of their bodies or at least have reduced sensory feedback. In support of the James–Lange view, some people with paraplegia have reported a drop-off in the intensity of their emotional experience (for example, anger lost its “heat”; Hohmann, 1966). Other studies, using neuroimaging techniques, have reached similar conclusions (Nicotra et al., 2006).
The James–Lange theory also predicts that unique physical changes should accompany each of the different emotional experiences. That is, a particular body response must produce anger, happiness, fear, and so on. But as noted previously, the dominant physiological response during an emotion is arousal, and heart rate changes, sweaty palms, and an increased breathing rate seem to be characteristic of virtually all emotions rather than just a select few. Think about how your body feels just before an important exam. How about the feelings you have before an important and long-awaited date? Would you describe the emotions as similar?
Sophisticated measuring devices have enabled researchers to record small, previously undetectable changes in body reactions. Such data may eventually help us to distinguish the body reaction for one emotional state from the body reaction of another (P. J. Lang, 1994; Levenson, 1992). No firm conclusions can be drawn at this point, but the evidence increasingly suggests that unique biological markers may be associated with particular emotions (Hamann, 2012; Saarimaki et al., 2016). Establishing definitive links between emotional states and physiological responses is an important step for emotion researchers, although perhaps not an unexpected one. After all, anger and happiness certainly are experienced differently and therefore must ultimately reflect differences in brain activity. But given the controversies surrounding the definition of a “basic” emotion, and the various ways in which the components of emotions can be expressed and shared, consensus on the issue is unlikely to be reached anytime soon.
The Cannon–Bard Theory
Historically, it didn’t take too long for critics of the James–Lange theory of emotion to emerge. Physiologist Walter Cannon mounted an influential attack in the 1920s. Cannon (1927) recognized that the body reacts in essentially the same way to most emotional experiences. He was also convinced that the conscious experience of emotion has a rapid onset—people feel fear immediately after seeing an attacking dog—but the physiological reactions that come from the autonomic nervous system have a relatively slow onset time (glands need to be activated, hormones need to be released into the bloodstream, and so on). Cannon felt the subjective experience of emotion and the associated body reactions are independent processes. Emotions and arousal may occur together, but one doesn’t cause the other. Cannon’s view was later modified somewhat by Philip Bard, so this approach is now generally known as the Cannon–Bard theory of emotion.
The Schachter and Singer Experiment
We’ve now discussed three different theories of emotion: (1) People experience emotions subjectively, which then leads to body reactions such as arousal (the commonsense view); (2) the body generates a characteristic internal reaction, which then produces the appropriate emotional experience (James–Lange); and (3) body reactions and subjective experiences occur together, but independently (Cannon–Bard). None of these views remains popular among emotion researchers.
The major problem with this trio of emotion theories is that they fail to take into account the cognitive side of emotion. To understand exactly what this means, we need to consider a study that was conducted in the early 1960s by psychologists Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer (see Figure 12.8). College students were recruited to participate in an experiment designed to test the effects of vitamin injections on vision. What the students didn’t know, however, was that the vitamin cover story was a ploy—rather than vitamins, they were injected with either a dose of epinephrine (which produces physiological arousal symptoms) or a dose of saline (which produces no effects). A second manipulated variable was expectation: Half the people in each of the injection groups were told to expect arousal symptoms—as a side effect of the vitamins—and the other half were told to expect no reaction of any kind.
Figure 12.8 The Schachter and Singer Experiment
Volunteer participants were injected with a drug that produced symptoms of physiological arousal. Half the participants were informed about the drug’s effects; the others were not. When placed in a room with either a euphoric or an angry accomplice, only the uninformed people adopted the same mood. Presumably, the informed participants attributed their arousal symptoms to the drug, whereas the uninformed participants interpreted the symptoms as an emotional experience.
Illustrated by Sarah Yeh
Now let’s consider what effect these conditions should have on emotional reactions. Suppose you’re sitting in a room, waiting for further instructions from the experimenter, when suddenly your heart begins to race and your palms begin to sweat. According to James–Lange, this arousal should translate into some kind of emotional experience; you might, for example, expect to become scared or irritated. But Schachter and Singer (1962) found that the experience of emotion was determined almost entirely by expectation. Those students who were told to anticipate arousal from the injection showed little emotional reaction to the arousal when it occurred. Only when the arousal was unexpected did people begin to report strong emotions.
More importantly, Schachter and Singer were able to influence the quality of the emotion when it occurred. Joining the participant in the waiting room was a disguised member of the experimental team, introduced as another participant in the experiment. Unknown to the real participant, the accomplice was instructed to act in a way that was either playful and euphoric or angry and disagreeable. In later assessments of mood, Schachter and Singer found that aroused but uninformed students tended to adopt the mood of the accomplice. If the accomplice was playful, the students reported feeling happy; if the accomplice was angry, the students reported feeling irritation.
Two-Factor Theory
The results of the Schachter and Singer experiment led to what is known as the two-factor theory of emotion. In two-factor theory, autonomic arousal is still a critical determinant of the emotional experience (factor 1). But equally important is the cognitive appraisal or interpretation of that arousal when it occurs (factor 2). An intense body reaction may be necessary for the full experience of an emotion, but it’s not sufficient. It’s how you interpret the arousal that ultimately determines your subjective emotion. So, you’re scared when you face a venomous snake not only because your body is aroused but also because your mind understands that what’s causing the arousal is dangerous. You label the arousal and thereby determine the emotion that’s experienced.
Like the other theories of emotion we’ve discussed, two-factor theory has generated its share of criticism. For example, some researchers remain convinced that emotions such as anger and fear can arise directly without higher-level interpretation or appraisal (Russell, 2003; Winkielman & Berridge, 2004). However, it’s possible to draw several tentative conclusions. First, it’s reasonably clear that arousal contributes to the experience of emotion. Second, the situation in which the arousal occurs, and our expectations about the source of the arousal, contribute to the emotional experience. Third, rather than saying the body reaction creates the emotion, or vice versa, it’s better to conclude that emotions arise from interactions among several sources: the stimulus event that leads to the reaction, autonomic changes in arousal, and the expectation-based cognitive labels applied to everything involved.