Two-factor theory of emotion

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The two-factor theory of emotion goes back to the American social psychologist Stanley Schachter (1964) and states that feelings can be understood as a function of physiological arousal and a context-dependent cognition that matches this arousal . First we notice physical symptoms such as sweating, tremors, pulse acceleration or the like, then we try to find the cause. For example, depending on the situation, exactly the same physical excitement can be perceived as being in love or as exam stress. In ambiguous situations, when the situational cues can be interpreted differently, there is a certain freedom of choice of feelings. As a victim of aggression, you can link the physical symptoms of the stress reaction , which only provide a lot of strength, with thoughts of flight to the emotion of fear or with thoughts of fighting against the emotion of anger (cf. fleeing or fighting ). It can also lead to incorrect attributions of causes ; for example, anger about a mishap can be mistaken for anger towards the partner.

As a sales technique, an attempt was made to use contextual stimuli to create pleasant feelings that (at least in part) are transferred to the goods. Customers who were showered with classical music bought more expensive items.

Schacher's theory is based on several previous theories, such as the James Lange theory (1884), the 2-component theory of emotion by Gregorio Marañón (1924), and other theories by Russel (1927) and Duffy (1941). Due to its experimental design for testing hypotheses (which is also used as evidence for causality ), the theory had the greatest influence on psychology and repeatedly encouraged replication attempts.

Experiment by Schachter and Singer (1962)

The American social psychologists Stanley Schachter and Jerome E. Singer carried out a social psychology experiment at Columbia University in 1962 . The test subjects were told that the experiment was intended to test the effects of a “vitamin composition” called Suproxin on their eyesight and, if they consented, injected it, which only one of the 185 test subjects refused. 3/4 of them were then injected with adrenaline and the remaining quarter with saline ( control group ). In addition, the people who had been administered adrenaline were either correct (which in the case of adrenaline was palpitations, tremors, increased blood flow, etc.) or incorrect (side effects that would not have resulted from the administration of the adrenaline) about possible "side effects" of the suproxin such as itching, headache and numbness) or not cleared up at all.

In addition, the test subjects were divided into two further groups, in which they could derive explanatory cognitions for their own state of arousal: a condition of euphoria and an anger condition. The test subjects were brought into a separate room to wait about 20 minutes for the effect of the suproxin and the supposed eye test. In this room they met another alleged test subject, who was, however, a confidante of the experimenter. The whole event could be observed by the experimenter through a one-way mirror . In the annoyance condition, a questionnaire should be filled out while waiting. Some of the questions in the questionnaire were suitable to make the test subject specifically irritated. So was z. B. asked about the number of illegitimate sexual partners of the mother and asked other similarly outrageous questions. The confidante was deliberately acting upset. In the euphoric condition, the two test subjects were asked to keep themselves busy during the waiting time. The confidante behaved in an extremely euphoric and silly manner (e.g. he tinkered with paper airplanes, built paper towers that were thrown off with paper balls, etc.).

So overall there was the following experimental design:

  • Informed groups: Subjects were informed about the expected side effects.
    • (Group 1) Euphoria condition
    • (Group 2) anger condition
  • Uninformed groups: Subjects were told there were no side effects.
    • (Group 3) Euphoria condition
    • (Group 4) anger condition
  • Incorrectly informed group: Subjects were told false side effects of the injection.
    • (Group 5) Euphoria condition
  • Control groups: Subjects received a saline solution that would not lead to any change in physiology.
    • (Group 6) Euphoria condition
    • (Group 7) anger condition

Schachters and Singer's hypothesis stated that the incorrectly and the completely uninformed test subjects would seek an explanation for the physiological arousal resulting from the adrenaline injection , which, depending on whether the confidante in the room was angry or silly, would also be angry or silly. The correctly informed subjects and the control group, on the other hand, should be only very slightly susceptible to the manipulation of the mood of the familiar, since they can correctly attribute their physiological arousal and attribute it to the injection.

The emotions and the physiological arousal were "measured":

  • by observing the test subjects during the waiting time with the confidante of the test director unnoticed and assessing their behavior and
  • by handing out a questionnaire to people after the attempt, in which they were asked to state which emotions they felt and whether they had physical symptoms such as B. felt tremors.
  • by measuring the subjects' pulse rate shortly before the injection and shortly after the test in order to be able to determine the physiological degree of arousal.

The evaluation showed the following:

  • Subjects who received adrenaline but did not receive a proper preliminary explanation of their physical arousal reported being silly (Groups 3 and 5) or angry (Groups 4) during the waiting period (depending on what the familiar had played them) .
  • The test subjects (groups 1 and 2), who were correctly informed in advance, could not be influenced emotionally by the familiar.
  • The control group (groups 6 and 7), however, was influenced by the familiar and did not differ significantly from the uninformed and misinformed group.

The hypothesis could largely be supported by the results, only the non-hypothesis-compliant results of the control group were problematic. Schachter and Singer stated that the reason for the contradicting results was that the control group could experience physiological excitement due to the experimental situation and that the group that was not informed or was incorrectly informed could attribute their physical excitement to the injection despite a lack of explanation. Appropriate analyzes have at least partially confirmed this.

Criticism and Consequences

In retrospect, the Schachter and Singer experiment was methodologically criticized again and again and prompted a series of follow-up experiments (primarily for causal attribution ) and replication attempts (including Marshall & Zimbardo , Valins), none of which reproduced the results of the Schachter and Singer experiment could, even on the contrary, consistently lead to a negative mood in the test subjects, regardless of whether the confidante was euphoric or angry.

It was concluded from this that physical excitement cannot be arbitrarily attributed to an emotion (cf. Walter Cannon's criticism of the James-Lange theory ( Cannon-Bard theory ); according to Ax, Weerts and Roberts, emotions can be attributed to thought that they were physiologically similar, like anger and fear, had different arousal patterns).

Nevertheless, the 2-factor theory made a significant contribution to emotional psychology by providing explanatory models for panic attacks, among other things, and encouraging scientists to orientate themselves on the cognitive-psychological research paradigm , even if the thesis that physiological arousal is sufficient for the development of emotions , so can no longer be sustained.

Dunn et al. were able to confirm a central prediction of the two-factor theory in a study by showing the influence of the ability to perceive the body on the evaluation of emotional images. People with good body awareness could feel their heartbeat particularly precisely. When looking at the pictures, the heartbeat of everyone changed automatically. However, only people with good body awareness associated this automatic change with their subjective arousal.

Experiment by Valins

In 1966, the psychologist Stuart Valins modified the two-factor theory of emotion. He carried out an experiment on the perception of one's own degree of activation (known as the Valins effect ).

Dutton and Aron's experiment (1974)

Men who had just crossed a long, narrow, swaying suspension bridge were approached by an attractive young woman who gave them her phone number for questions about a TAT test the men completed on her. This was done on a second group of men on a safe bridge. Men in the first group then called the young attractive woman significantly more often and wrote about sexual topics more frequently in the TAT test than the second group. With men instead of the young woman, there was no significant difference between the two groups. Such misallocations of physical condition have been replicated in numerous studies. Consequently, in places such as a fairground or a discotheque, be skeptical if you find someone attractive.

literature

  • W.-U. Meyer, A. Schützewohl, R. Reisenzein: Introduction to Emotional Psychology . 2nd Edition. Volume 1, Hans Huber Verlag, Bern 2002, ISBN 3-456-83648-1 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ S. Schachter: The interaction of cognitive and physiological determinants of emotional states. In: L. Berkowitz (Ed.) Advances in experimental social psychology. Academic Press, New York 1964.
  2. ^ E. Aronson , TD Wilson, RM Akert: Social Psychology. 6th edition. Pearson Studium, 2008, ISBN 978-3-8273-7359-5 , p. 147.
  3. ↑ RC Sinclair et al: Construct accessibility and the misattribution of arousal: Schachter and Singer revisited. In: Psychological Science. 5, 1994, pp. 15-19.
  4. ^ W. Schneider , A. Hennig : Checkout, bargain! Südwest Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-517-08595-1 .
  5. ^ S. Schachter, JE Singer: Cognitive, social, and physiological determinants of emotional states. In: Psychology Review. 69, 1962, pp. 379-399.
  6. ↑ Replica in: S. Schachter, JE Singer: Comments on the Maslach and Marshall-Zimbardo experiments. In: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 37, 1979, pp. 989-995.
  7. ^ BD Dunn, HC Galton, R. Morgan, D. Evans, C. Oliver, M. Meyer, R. Cusack, AD Lawrence, T. Dalgleish: Listening to Your Heart: How Interoception Shapes Emotion Experience and Intuitive Decision Making. In: Psychological Science. 21 (12), 2010, pp. 1835-1844.
  8. ^ DG Dutton, AP Aron: Some evidence for heightened sexual attraction under conditions of high anxiety. In: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 30, 1974, pp. 510-517.
  9. ↑ CM Meston, PF Frohlich: Love at first fright: Partner salience moderate roller-coaster-induced excitation transfer. In: Archives of Sexual Behavior. 32 (6), 2003, pp. 537-544.
  10. ^ D. Zillmann: Attribution and misattribution of excitatory reactions. In: JH Harvey et al. (Ed.): New directions in attribution research . Vol. 2, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ 1978, pp. 335-370.