Our experience of emotion involves a physiological response, which the mind then identifies.
What Is the Schachter and Singer Theory?
So, imagine you are alone in a dark parking lot walking toward your car.
Verywell / Cindy Chung
A strange man suddenly emerges from a nearby row of trees and rapidly approaches.
The immediate environment also plays an important role in how physical responses are identified and labeled.
All of the participants were told that they were being injected with a new drug to test their eyesight.
Participants were then placed in a room with another participant who was actually a confederate in the experiment.
The confederate either acted in one of two ways: euphoric or angry.
As you’re able to see, cognitive labeling is open to interpretation, depending on the context.
You might be anxious about speaking with your boss, until you realize they have good news.
In another study by Maslach, hypnotic suggestion was used to induce arousal rather than injecting epinephrine.
Another criticism of the two-factor theory is that sometimes emotions are experiencedbeforewe think about them.
Two of the best-known are the James-Lange theory and the Cannon-Bard theory.
Similar to the Schacter-Singer theory, the James-Lange theory proposes that an emotion occurs as a result of arousal.
In other words, if we aren’t physically aroused, our emotional response will be weakened.
For instance, many people experience rapid heart rate and sweating when they’re scared.
Cannon-Bard Theory
TheCannon-Bard theoryof emotion was developed in response to the James-Lange theory.
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