Schachter and Singer Study Chart PDF

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Summary

Lecture Notes on the Psychology Study: Schachter and Singer...

Description

Schachter and Singer Study Chart ● Cognition → the mental processes of acquiring and processing knowledge and understanding through experiences, senses and thought. ● Emotion → the body’s adaptive response to a particular situation. ● Sympathetic Nervous System → the brain, spinal cord and all the nerve cells in the body that communicate to control our thinking, behavior and emotions.

Relevant Background

● What is important to note is how individuals use either internal or external cues to identify their own emotional state. ● Early research suggests that cognitive factors could influence our emotional state. ● It was suggested that an emotional state may be considered a function of a a state of physiological arousal and and of a cognition appropriate to this state of arousal. ● The Two Factor Theory of Emotion suggests that emotional experience comes from a combination of a physical state of arousal and a cognition that makes best sense of the situation the person is in. ○ When people get aroused they look for cues as to why they feel the way they do from the environment. ○ Physiological Arousal and Cognitive interpretation.

Purpose/Aim

● To test the Two-Factor Theory of Emotion. ○ Wanted to research if, given a state of physiological arousal for which the individual has no adequate explanation, cognitive factors can lead the individual to describing their feelings with any types of emotional arousal.

Hypothesis(es)

● If a person experiences a state of arousal for which they have no immediate explanation, they will describe their emotions in terms of the cognitions available to them at the time. ● If a person experiences a state of arousal for which they have an appropriate explanation (Ex: ‘I feel this way because I have just received an injection of adrenalin’), then they will be unlikely

to describe their emotions in terms of the alternative cognitions available. ● If a person is put in a situation, which in the past could have made them feel an emotion, they will react emotionally or experience emotions only if they are in a state of physiological arousal. Type of Study (Methodology)

● Laboratory Experiment ● Highly Standardized Procedures ● Independent Measures Design

Independent Variable(s) and Dependent Variable(s)

● Independent Variables ○ The knowledge about the injections: whether they were informed, misinformed, or ignorant. ○ The emotional situation that the participant was placed into the following injection; either euphoria or anger. ● Dependent Variable ○ The participants emotional state. ■ Through a one way mirror. ○ self report on various measures ■ With a scale (both euphoria and anger (emotional) and the side effects they were experiencing (tremors, palpitations, etc.)

Participants/Sample

● 185 participants ● All male college students taking an introductory to psychology course at the University of Minnesota. ● The university health records of all participants were checked prior to the experiment to ensure that no harmful effects would result from the injections.

Sampling Technique

● Independent Measures

Procedure Summary

● Each PS was taken to the private room and told that the study was a test of vision and the vitamin supplement Suproxin. ● If the PS agreed to the study, a short while later a doctor arrived and gave an injection of Suproxin. ● PS were given one of the three different set of instructions depending on whether they were in the INF, MIS , or IGN/ Placebo group. ● Each PS was then placed in a room and

introduced to another 'participant'(actually a stooge) and told to wait for 20 mins. The stooge either behaved euphorically or angrily. ○ *Euphoric- doodles on paper , crumples it, throws it in, wastebasket, and plays basketball. Asks Ps to join in . Makes paper plane, flies it. Builds a tower with folders then knocks them over. Plays with a hula hoop. ○ *Angry- begins to answer a questionnaire, which gets increasingly personal and insulting. Makes aggressive comments about it. ● The experimenter enters the room and hands out questionnaires for 'feedback on effects of Suproxin'. ● The experimenter debriefs the PS. (11 of the PS were suspicious of the Experiment so their data was discarded). Data Type (Quan/Qual/Mixed)

● Mixed ○ Quantitative ■ *Coded categories of behavior ■ *Coded categories of anger ■ *Self-reports of feeling ○ Qualitative ■ *Open-ended questions (don't know responses)

Data Analysis

● The subjects who received the injections of adrenaline showed significantly more sympathetic arousal (as measured by pulse rate and self-ratings on palpitation, tremor, numbness, itching and headache) in comparison to the placebo subjects. ● [However, five subjects showed no relevant symptoms to the adrenalin and thus, were excluded from the study] ● In the euphoria condition the misinformed participants were feeling happier than all the others. The second happiest group was the ignorant group. This demonstrates that these participants were more susceptible to the stooge because they had no explanation of why their bodies felt as they did. The informed group felt the least happy because they understood why they felt as they did.

● In the anger condition, the ignorant group felt the angriest. The second angriest group was the placebo group. The least angry group were those who were informed. Again this shows that participants were more susceptible to the stooge because they had no explanation of why their body felt as it did. ● The behaviour (which was observed through a one way mirror) matched their self-reports. Main Findings

● Schachter and Singer argue that their findings support their two-factor theory of emotion. The two-factor theory of emotion states that the physiological arousal in different emotion is entirely the same and we label our arousal according to the cognitions we have available. ● They argue that all three propositions were supported.

Strengths of the Study

● Amount of control in their procedure. ○ Increases ecological validity. ○ They were able to randomly allocate different participants to the different conditions, they were able to deceive the participants of the real nature of the experiment and standardise the procedure as much as possible. They even ensured that the stooge did not know which condition the participant was in. ● Large number of participants ○ Increases the rate of generalizability. ○ May be a weakness because only men were used.

Weaknesses of the Study

● Bad sample (all male, all students, approximately the same age). ● Questioned on ethical ground (injecting people with adrenaline without consent). ● Results weren’t specific. ● 5 subjects were excluded because they may have found out what the study was about. ● No assessment of subjects mood before injection (maybe they were extremely happy or exceptionally angry).

● Ethnocentric bias. Ecological Validity (why/not?)

● Not ecologically valid. ○ We do not usually experience emotions in the way in which Schachter and Singer induced them. We are often aware of events before the onset of arousal and this gives us information we can use to interpret out physical cues.

Ethics of Study (include positive and negative)

● Weaknesses ○ Even though the participants were given health checks before the experiment began, and were thoroughly debriefed, they were considerably deceived. ○ The results were definitely not as impressive as expected. All the participants in the euphoria and anger situation were not actually angry. ○ If they were angry they would have got minus scores. It seems that the experimenters were only able to make participants less happy but not angry. ○ We can also question the assumption that all participants would react in the same way to the adrenaline. ○ Adrenalin does not affect everyone in the same way. ■ For example five of Schachter & Singer’s subjects were excluded from analysis because they experienced no physiological symptoms. ● Strengths ○ there were two observers which makes it less objective because it is two opinions instead of one....