UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI
November 18, 2005
Date:___________________
Michael Sontag
I, _________________________________________________________,
hereby submit this work as part of the requirements for the degree of:
Doctor of Philosophy
in:
Philosophy
It is entitled:
Emotion and the Labeling Process
This work and its defense approved by:
Jenefer Robinson
Chair: _______________________________
Christopher Gauker
_______________________________
Thomas Polger
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
Emotion
And
The Labeling Process
Michael Sontag
B.A. in Philosophy, 1998
University of Cincinnati
Submitted to the faculty of the
University of Cincinnati
College of Arts and Sciences
Department of Philosophy
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Approved:
Jenefer Robinson, chair
Christopher Gauker
Thomas Polger
November 18, 2005
III
Abstract
Contemporary philosophical thinking about the emotions largely centers around two
distinct approaches. Some philosophers conceive of the emotions as primarily
physiological phenomena—as reflex-like responses that are best understood through
biology or the neurosciences. Other philosophers approach the emotions as primarily
cognitive phenomena—as complexes of beliefs and attitudes that are best understood
through the social sciences or through philosophical analysis.
I narrow the gap between physiological approaches and cognitive approaches to
understanding the emotions by focusing on how the physiological aspects of the emotions
and the cognitive aspects of the emotions interact throughout the course of an emotional
episode. I have done this by taking the labeling process, first described by psychologist
Stanley Schachter (1962), as crucial for understanding the emotions. On this view, an
emotion is a function of a state of physiological arousal and the process of interpreting
and describing that state of arousal using an emotional term, such as happiness, anger,
jealousy, or indignation.
In this dissertation, I examine Stanley Schachter’s original formulation of the idea
of the labeling process and I critically evaluate the well-known Schachter and Singer
experiment. I also examine the historical background and the reception of Schachter’s
theory. I consider Schachter’s theory in light of current research and demonstrate that
Schachter’s theory leads to novel solutions to problems facing current research. Finally, I
elucidate some of the concepts which are fundamental to Schachter’s framework and I
respond to important objections.
IV
V
Acknowledgements
Many people have played important roles in helping me complete this project. Thanks to
Jenefer Robinson for introducing me to the field of emotion theory, guiding me through
the literature, and helping me to shape my own views. Thanks to Christopher Gauker for
being the first person to take an interest in my philosophical development and leading me
through the graduate program from beginning to end. Thanks also to Thomas Polger for
his advice and support throughout this project.
The University of Cincinnati Philosophy Department has provided me with
intellectual and financial support throughout my career as a graduate student. A special
thanks goes to John Bickle for his enthusiasm and support for the work of the
department’s graduate students. I am also grateful for the support of the Charles Phelps
Taft Research Center which provided me with financial support for two years while I
worked on this dissertation. Thanks also to my colleagues at the College of Mount St.
Joseph, especially S. Margaret McPeak and Ron White, who have provided me with a
wonderfully supportive environment in which to work while I completed this project.
Finally, I must thank my family and friends for their constant support and
enthusiasm. Most of all, thanks to my wife Rebecca with whom I have discussed every
idea in this project at least once. She has even been gracious enough to agree with me
most of the time. Without her patience and support this project would not have been
possible. Liam, we will love you forever.
VI
Table of Contents
Introduction
I.
The Schachter and Singer Experiment
II.
The Reception, the Replications, and the
1
7
Results of the Schachter and Singer Experiment
25
III.
Neo-Centralists and Neo-Peripheralists
60
IV.
Judgment Theories
99
V.
Elucidation of Important Concepts
114
VI.
Social Construction and the Emotions
135
VII. Animal Emotions
164
VIII. Mislabeling
176
Conclusion
205
Bibliography
207
1
Introduction
Psychologists Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer, in “Cognitive, Social, and
Physiological Determinants of Emotional State” (1962), reported the results of an
experiment that became extremely influential in the study of the emotions among both
psychologists and philosophers. Schachter and Singer used their results to show that the
emotions cannot be differentiated by the arousal that accompanies them; instead, it is the
cognitions that accompany a state of arousal that make that state a particular emotion. A
state of physiological arousal was induced in each subject by means of an injection of
epinephrine disguised as a vitamin supplement. Although they all experienced a similar
state of arousal, the subjects reported experiencing different emotions depending on the
situation in which they had been placed. Subjects placed in a room with a stooge trained
to display anger became angry; subjects placed in a room with a stooge trained to act
2
euphoric became euphoric themselves. Subjects who were expecting a state of arousal as
a side effect of the injection, or who received a placebo injection, tended to not become
emotional in the presence of the stooge.
Through this experiment, Schachter introduced what became known as the
“cognition-arousal,” “cognitive-physiological,” “two-factor,” or “jukebox” theory of the
emotions (Reisenzein, 1983). According to Schachter, an emotion is a function of (1) a
state of physiological arousal, and (2) a judgment that a particular emotional label is
appropriate to describe that state of arousal. So, my fear of the charging bear is a
function of my state of physiological arousal and my judgment that fear is the appropriate
label to describe my state of arousal. Schachter’s theory of the emotions enjoyed
widespread popularity throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s and was influential in many
other areas of research as well. Research based on Schachter’s model included studies of
eating and obesity, psychopathy, drugs, dissonance, and attitude change (Reisenzein,
1983). Although Schachter’s theory is still prominent in many ‘Introduction to
Psychology’ textbooks, his model of the emotions has quietly disappeared from the
literature concerning contemporary emotion theory.
Although Schachter’s theory of the emotions has faded from current literature on
emotion theory, Schachter and Singer’s 1962 experiment is still widely discussed. When
I was first surveying the literature on emotion theory, I was struck by the fact that nearly
every book on the emotions that I picked up included a discussion of the Schachter and
Singer experiment. The responses to the experiment varied enormously. Robert
Solomon (1976) believed that the results of the experiment were so obvious as to hardly
deserve comment. Robert Gordon (1987) believed that the experiment threatened to
3
trivialize our emotional lives. Paul Griffiths (1997) believed that the entire experiment
rested on one simple mistake. Many emotion theorists found fault with various aspects of
the design and the interpretation of the results of the study (Plutchik and Ax, 1967;
Maslach, 1979; Marshall and Zimbardo, 1979; Reisenzein, 1983). What did become
clear was that even emotion theorists who were sympathetic to Schachter and Singer’s
conclusions were not comfortable with the experiment itself.
I was initially interested in investigating the Schachter and Singer experiment as
an historical artifact. I was curious about how the experiment came to attract so much
attention but, in the end, so little support. As I began to analyze the experiment and the
various criticisms of the experiment, I was surprised to find that Schachter’s theory of the
emotions itself was surprisingly powerful. At first, I found concepts such as ‘labeling’
and ‘evaluative needs’ to be rather mysterious. After spending some time studying and
developing Schachter’s views, I came to see these concepts as well-founded and
extremely useful in understanding emotional episodes.
In this dissertation, I will discuss the Schachter and Singer experiment, the
historical background of the experiment, and the attempts to replicate Schachter and
Singer’s results. I will also attempt to show that Schachter’s theory of the emotions
constitutes a viable and powerful theory of the emotions. I will consider why Schachter’s
theory has become underrepresented in the current literature on the emotions and I will
show that Schachter’s theory offers novel solutions to problems facing contemporary
theorists. I will also consider a number of important objections to the view.
In Chapter One, I will discuss Schachter and Singer’s 1962 experiment itself. I
will also discuss the historical background relevant to the experiment: in particular, the
4
long-running debate between the peripheralists, who claimed that the essence of an
emotion is to be found in the perception of a particular bodily state, and the centralists,
who claimed that the essence of an emotion is to be found in a particular pattern of neural
activation.
In Chapter Two, I will consider attempts to replicate Schachter and Singer’s
results and various criticisms which have been raised regarding the design and the
interpretation of the experiment. Having evaluated these replications and criticisms, I
will attempt to show what I believe can justifiably be concluded from the Schachter and
Singer experiment itself.
In Chapter Three, I will consider contemporary versions of the peripheralist and
centralist views discussed in Chapter One. While I believe that the research of these neoperipheralists and neo-centralists is extremely valuable, neither approach can claim to
offer a complete account of the emotions. I argue that the research generated by neoperipheralists and neo-centralists is best understood when it has been assimilated into a
Schachterian framework.
In Chapter Four, I will consider the work of judgment theorists, who claim that
the emotions are essentially complexes of propositional attitudes such as beliefs, desires,
and wishes. I argue that this approach to understanding the emotions causes us to lose
sight of other essential aspects of the emotions and prevents us from appreciating the full
range of ways in which cognitive judgments function within an emotional episode. Much
of the research carried out by judgment theorists, however, is extremely valuable when
integrated into a Schachterian framework.
5
In Chapter Five, I will attempt to elucidate some of the notions which are
fundamental to Schachter’s theory: evaluative needs, the labeling process, and
appropriateness, in particular. These notions are somewhat vague in Schachter’s own
writings. I will attempt to clarify these concepts and explain how these concepts relate to
one another within Schachter’s theory of the emotions.
In Chapter Six, I will discuss how to go about reconciling naturalistic accounts of
the emotions, which depict the emotions primarily as biological responses, with
constructionist accounts of the emotions, which depict the emotions primarily as social
constructions. I consider and reject P.N. Johnson-Laird and Keith Oatley’s (2000)
attempt to reconcile these contrary accounts and I suggest an approach that naturally
follows from a Schachterian view of the emotions.
In Chapter Seven, I will consider an objection to my Schachterian account of the
emotions. On my view, it is a mistake to attribute particular emotions such as anger,
guilt, and jealousy to non-human animals. In recent years, researchers have become more
comfortable with attributing human emotions to non-human animals (Panksepp, 1998;
Bekoff, 2000). I will try to show why it is a mistake to attribute particular emotions to
non-human animals, and I will argue that my view allows us to better appreciate and
understand the emotional lives of non-human animals.
In Chapter Eight, I consider another objection. Sometimes we believe that a
person is mistaken about their emotional state—the person may claim to be happy even
when it clearly appears that they are grieving. On my view, it is not a simple matter to
show that someone is mistaken regarding their own emotional state. I develop an account
of mislabeling which allows us to accommodate these intuitions while still remaining
6
faithful to a Schachterian perspective. Finally, in Chapter Nine, I will assess the project
as a whole and suggest further directions for the development of Schachter’s theory and
for emotion theory as a whole.
7
1.
The Schachter and Singer Experiment
In the three decades prior to Schachter and Singer’s 1962 experiment, emotion theory
was dominated by a debate between peripheralists, inspired by William James, and
centralists, inspired by Walter B. Cannon. Jamesian peripheralists believed that the
emotions were primarily a matter of the perception of visceral or peripheral changes such
as changes in heart rate and muscle tension. Cannon-inspired centralists believed that the
emotions were primarily a matter of the activation of particular brain structures. Since
Schachter and Singer intended their 1962 experiment to demonstrate the error underlying
both the peripheralist and the centralist projects, we will examine these two theories in
more detail.
8
The Peripheralist/ Centralist Debate
William James (1884) tells us that a common sense view of the emotions would suggest
that the recognition of some fact about the world gives rise to the emotion, which in turn
gives rise to the physical symptoms of that emotion. For instance, I recognize a charging
bear that causes me to experience fear. My fear causes my body to release adrenaline,
my muscles to tense, and my breathing and heart rate to increase.
James tells us, however, that the situation is quite the opposite: “My thesis on the
contrary is that the bodily changes follow directly the PERCEPTION of the existing fact,
and that our feeling of the same changes as they occur IS the emotion” (1884, 189-190,
italics and capitals in original). The sequence of events according to the common sense
view is that the recognized fact gives rise to the emotion which in turn gives rise to the
physical symptoms. On the Jamesian view, however, the recognized fact gives rise to the
physical effects which then give rise to the emotion. The Jamesian analysis of my
encounter with the bear would be that my recognition of the charging bear causes my
body to release adrenaline, my muscles to tense, and my breathing and heart rate to
increase. These physiological changes cause me to experience the emotion fear—more
specifically, my perception of these physiological changes is the emotion. An appeal to
introspection supports this picture:
If we fancy some strong emotion, and then try to abstract from our consciousness
of it all the bodily symptoms, we find we have nothing left behind, no “mind-stuff”
out of which the emotion can be constituted, and that a cold and neutral state of
intellectual perception is all that remains (1884, 193, italics in original).
9
Imagine my fear of the charging bear. If I subtract from it my surge of adrenaline, my
increased muscle tension, my increased heart rate, and all other bodily symptoms, I find
that there is no emotion left: “A purely disembodied emotion is a nonentity” (1884, 194).
An evolutionary story explains how the recognition of a fact could directly cause
the physiological effects necessary to the emotion:
“[T]he nervous system of every living thing is but a bundle of predispositions to
react in particular ways upon the contact of particular features of the
environment... The neural machinery is but a hyphen between determinate
arrangements of matter outside the body and determinate impulses to inhibition or
discharge within its organs” (1884, 190).
Species have evolved such that the recognition of certain facts about the world cause
certain physical effects to occur. James calls the neural machinery “a hyphen” between
states in the external world and the impulses to specific physiological changes in the
body.
Each species has its own set of dispositions: “Every living creature is in fact a
sort of lock, whose wards and springs presuppose special forms of key, --which keys
however are not born attached to the locks, but are sure to be found near by as life goes
on” (1884, 191). James recalls coming across a bucket of horse blood as a child. He
fainted as he stirred the blood with a stick, even though he felt no disgust or
apprehension. James concludes that just the mere presence of the blood caused the
physical effect of fainting. No emotion occurred prior to his fainting; rather, just the
recognition of the blood caused his fainting. Thus, when I see a charging bear, my body
releases adrenaline, my muscles tense, and my breathing and heart rate increase because
10
humans have evolved to have a disposition to experience these bodily changes when they
recognize a charging bear.
Of course this example is only a caricature of the great variety of bodily changes
that James takes to occur upon the recognition of a charging bear. Along with muscle
tension and increases in adrenaline level, breathing, and heart rate, we will find changes
in the bladder, the bowels, the skin—changes will in fact occur throughout the entire
body. Even changes such as weeping or striking out will be counted among changes that
contribute to the emotion. It is important for James’s account that there is a great variety
of bodily changes that accompany the emotions since it is differences among these bodily
changes that must account for the subtle differences between, and the great variety
among, the various emotions. James is confident that the variety of emotional
experiences will be easily matched by an equal variety of physiological changes
associated with them: “[N]ot even a Darwin has exhaustively enumerated all the bodily
affections characteristic of any one of the standard emotions. More and more, as
physiology advances, we begin to discern how almost infinitely numerous and subtle they
must be” (1884, 191, italics in original).
Unfortunately for James and the peripheralists, identifying physiological
differentiators for the emotions proved to be more difficult than expected. A former
student of William James, Walter B. Cannon, criticized the peripheralist project based on
mounting contrary empirical evidence (1927). One of James’s key arguments for his
thesis involves imagining some strong emotion and then subtracting the perception of
bodily changes from that imaginary experience. According to James we are left with no
emotion at all. All that remains is a cold, neutral state of intellectual perception. While
11
James intended this to be carried out as a thought experiment, Cannon points to studies
performed using animal subjects in which the experiment is carried out not in the
imagination but surgically. C.S. Sherrington (1900) and Cannon, J.T. Lewis, and S.W.
Britton (1927) surgically separated the central nervous systems of animals from their
connections with those bodily structures whose activation was taken by James to be the
essence of an emotional experience. The animal subjects in both experiments continued
to display normal emotional responses in all of the organs still connected with the brain.
Cannon (1927) quotes Sherrington, who reports concerning one of his surgically altered
dogs: “her anger, her joy, her disgust, and when provocation arose, her fear, remained as
evident as ever” (108). Other than erection of the hairs, Cannon’s altered cats still
displayed “all superficial signs of rage” in the presence of a barking dog—hissing,
showing of the teeth, retraction of the ears, and so on. These results suggest that James’s
thesis cannot be correct. Although the animals are unable to perceive changes in their
own viscera they still exhibit the symptoms of a genuine emotional response.
Other findings concerning the functioning of the viscera also did not fit well with
the Jamesian view. The same visceral changes were found to occur in a wide variety of
emotional states. Visceral changes such as increased heart rate, release of adrenaline,
widening of the pupils, erection of hairs, inhibition of gastro-intestinal peristalsis and
contraction of arterioles were found to function as a unit, contrary to James’s expectation
that a unique pattern would be found to correspond with each emotion (Cannon, 1927).
In addition, the same visceral changes are also found in non-emotional states such as
chilliness, fever, and hypoglycemia. James’s theory requires that the variety of the
emotions be matched by at least as great a variety of visceral changes. The fact that the
12
same changes are found to occur in very different emotional states and in many nonemotional states suggests that James’s thesis cannot account for the differentiation among
the various emotions and the differentiation between emotional and non-emotional states.
This problem is compounded by the fact that, contrary to what James believed, the
viscera are relatively insensitive structures—we are unable to perceive most changes in
the viscera at all (Cannon, 1927). If we could perceive every physiological change in the
body we would have, to borrow James’s analogy, a very large “sounding board” to detect
subtle variations between visceral states. In fact, our “sounding board” is quite small.
Even if different visceral patterns did correspond to the various emotions, we would still
have to question whether those changes could be perceived as required by James’s
theory.
Studies of the brain also proved problematic for the Jamesian picture. James
expected that the brain processes involved in emotional episodes should be no different
from the brain processes involved in ordinary sensations. Since the emotion itself is just
the perception of physiological changes, no special brain centers for the emotions ought
to be necessary. All that should be needed are the cortical centers that underlie our
everyday sensations. A series of studies cited by Cannon suggested that this is not the
case. In both animal and human subjects emotional responses were still observed when
cortical processes had been interrupted through surgical removal or anesthesia. Lacking
a cortex, the animal subjects should have been unable to perceive their own arousal and
no emotion should have been possible.
While studies of the brain suggested that cortical processes were not essential in
episodes of emotion, they did suggest a special role for the thalamus. Decorticated cats
13
displayed the “complete picture of intense fury” upon waking from anesthesia but
emotional activity ceased when the thalamus was removed (Cannon and Britton, 1925).
Studies of human subjects also suggested a special role for the thalamus in episodes of
emotion. In some cases of hemiplegia, subjects were unable to move muscles on one side
of the face voluntarily but, so long as the thalamus was intact, could move those muscles
as part of genuine emotional expressions. The opposite was found in cases of unilateral
injury to the thalamus. The muscles on one side of the face remained motionless during
genuine emotional expressions but could still be moved by the subject voluntarily.
Cannon also notes cases of unilateral lesions in the thalamic region in which the subjects
tended to react excessively to affective stimuli felt on the damaged side. Pin pricks or
excessive heat or cold produced great distress on the damaged side; agreeable stimuli
such as mild warmth produced intense pleasure.
These findings led Cannon to suggest a new theory of the emotions based on
thalamic processes: “The theory which naturally presents itself is that the peculiar
quality of the emotion is added to simple sensation when the thalamic processes are
roused” (1927, 120, italics in original). According to Cannon’s picture, thalamic
processes are stimulated either by the cortex or by impulses from receptor cells
themselves. Activation of the thalamus then gives rise to muscular and visceral changes
and also excites “afferent paths to the cortex.”
Cannon notes that it is easy to see why James took visceral changes to be primary
to emotion. When the thalamus is activated, according to Cannon, it not only adds
emotional color to sensation but it also simultaneously triggers bodily changes. It is the
activation of the thalamus that causes both emotional experience and the bodily changes
14
associated with emotion. Not properly appreciating the role of the thalamus, James took
the bodily changes themselves to be the cause of emotional experience.
The peripheralist/ centralist debate had begun. The Jamesian peripheralists
searched for patterns of visceral activation that corresponded to particular emotions while
the Cannon-inspired centralists worked to isolate the particular brain structures
responsible for the emotions. We now turn to Schachter, who hoped to put an end to the
debate by showing that both sides were guilty of the same fatal error.
The Schachter and Singer Experiment
Schachter and Singer’s famous experiment (1962) was in part inspired by a study
performed by Gregorio Marañon (1924). Marañon injected 210 subjects with
epinephrine and asked them to introspect. The injection of epinephrine created in the
subjects a state of physiological arousal much like that found in emotional responses.
Would the perception of this state be sufficient to produce an emotion as the Jamesian
theory suggests? Marañon’s results show that this state of arousal is not sufficient for a
genuine emotion. Seventy-one percent of Marañon’s subjects described their symptoms
with no emotional overtone at all. Of the remaining 29%, most described their feelings
as “as if” emotions: “I feel as if I were afraid”, “I feel as if awaiting a great happiness.”
A few, however, did report experiencing genuine emotions. Marañon observed that the
subjects who did report a genuine emotional reaction were subjects who, during the
experiment, spontaneously recalled some memory with strong affective force—a memory
of dead parents or sick children.
15
Why did so few of Marañon’s subjects experience genuine emotions? William
James might offer that the injection of adrenaline would produce a generalized arousal
but not those subtle aspects of the arousal which would make the perception of that
arousal a specific and genuine emotion. Schachter, however, believes that a more
plausible explanation is that the subject already had an appropriate explanation as to why
they were undergoing this arousal: “I am in a state of arousal because of the injection I
have just received.” Each subject knew that they had received an injection and very
likely had some familiarity with its effects. For this reason the subjects were unlikely to
report experiencing any genuine emotion.
Schachter asks us to consider a case in which the subjects were not aware of any
direct cause of their physiological arousal. The unexplained arousal would give rise to
“evaluative needs”; that is, the subject would feel pressure to understand and to label his
bodily feelings. Schachter expects that the subject would label his feelings in terms of his
knowledge of the immediate situation. If he is in the company of a beautiful woman he
may conclude he is wildly in love or sexually excited. If he is at a merry party, he may
decide that he is happy and euphoric. If the arousal seems completely inappropriate he
may conclude he is excited about something that happened recently or he may even think
he must be sick. This line of thought leads Schachter to a picture of an emotional state as
a function of cognitive factors and a state of physiological arousal. From this picture
follow three specific hypotheses that Schachter hopes his experiment will confirm.
First, if an individual finds herself in a state of physiological arousal for which he
has no immediate explanation, he will “label” his arousal in terms of the cognitions
available to him. Differences in physiological arousal are not sufficient to differentiate
16
among the various emotions. The same state of physiological arousal might be labeled
“joy” or “fury” or with any other emotional label based on the individual’s cognitions
regarding the situation.
Second, if the individual already has an immediate explanation for his arousal he
will feel no need to label his arousal in emotional terms. Thus, if the individual has had
four cups of coffee he will attribute his arousal to the caffeine and have no need to appeal
to other cognitions regarding the situation in order to explain the arousal.
Finally, an individual will experience an emotion just to the extent that he is
experiencing a state of physiological arousal. Two individuals may find themselves in
the same cognitive circumstances but only the individual who is experiencing a state of
physiological arousal will come to describe his state in emotional terms.
The participants in Schachter and Singer’s experiment were 185 male University
of Minnesota undergraduates. They were told that they would each be given an injection
of a vitamin supplement called “Suproxin”. Tests would be performed to determine the
effects of the supplement on their vision. Under the guise of an injection of “Suproxin,”
each subject was injected either with a dose of epinephrine or with a placebo.
At the time the injections were administered, the subjects injected with
epinephrine were told what side effects they ought to expect from the “Suproxin.” One
group, the epinephrine informed group (Epi Inf), was told that they may feel shaky,
experience an increased heart rate, and a warm and flushed face—all expected side
effects of an injection of epinephrine. The second, epinephrine misinformed group (Epi
Mis), was told to expect a numbing of the feet, itching, and a slight headache—none of
17
which are side effects of an injection of epinephrine. The third, epinephrine ignorant
(Epi Ign), group was told nothing regarding possible side effects of the injection.
These groups were then split into two conditions. One group (Anger) was placed
in a set of conditions designed to provide anger-inducing cognitions. The conditions for
the second group (Euphoria) provided euphoria-inducing cognitions. There were then a
total of seven experimental groups:
TABLE 1.
EUPHORIA
ANGER
Epi Inf
Epi Inf
Epi Ign
Epi Ign
Epi Mis
---------
Placebo
Placebo
The Epi Mis condition was not run in the Anger condition. The Epi Mis condition was
used in the Euphoria condition to determine whether mention of side effects at all (even
misleading ones) might make the subjects more introspective and have an impact on the
final results. Whether this artifact might occur could be determined by running the Epi
Mis condition in just the Euphoria condition.
Euphoria Condition: Having received the injection of “Suproxin” and having been either
informed, misinformed, or kept ignorant of any possible side effects, the subject was
asked to wait in a room with another subject while the injection entered the bloodstream.
This “other subject” was in fact a stooge who had been trained to act out a standard
routine of “euphoric” behavior. The routine begins with rather mild behavior—doodling
18
on scrap paper and shooting paper basketballs at the trashcan. By the end of the routine,
the stooge is playing with two hula-hoops that he has “found” behind a blackboard.
Throughout the routine the stooge invites the subject to join in his euphoric behavior.
Anger condition: Subjects in the anger condition are placed in very different
circumstances. In this condition the stooge is trained to act out a routine of anger-related
behaviors, mostly in response to a somewhat offensive questionnaire that he and the
subject have been asked to complete while they wait for the Suproxin to enter the
bloodstream. The stooge paces his work on the questionnaire along with the subject and
makes a series of standard comments about the questions. The first questions are mild
enough (“List the foods you would eat in a typical day”) but the stooge does express his
irritation about having to fill out the questionnaire at all. The questions become
increasingly offensive and the stooge becomes increasingly angry. Question 25 lists
items such as “Does not bathe or wash regularly” and “Seems to need psychiatric care”
and asks the subject to name which of his family members the item best describes. To
this the stooge replies “I’ll be damned if I fill out number 25!” and angrily crosses out the
question. The final question asks: “With how many men (other than your father) has
your mother had extramarital relationships? 4 and under___: 5-9___: 10 and over___.”
By this point the stooge tears up the questionnaire and storms out of the room, saying,
“I’m not wasting any more time. I’m getting my books and leaving!”
The subject’s emotional state during his time with the stooge was assessed using
two measures. Observations were made of the subject through a one-way mirror. The
stooge’s standardized routine was divided into units and for each unit the observer coded
19
the subject’s behavior during that period. For the Euphoria condition, each subject’s
behavior was categorized as “joining in the activity,” “initiating a new activity” or
“watching or ignoring the stooge’s activity.” For the Anger condition, each subject’s
behavior was categorized as agreeing with the stooge, disagreeing with the stooge, a
neutral response to the stooge, initiating an agreement or a disagreement with the stooge,
watching the stooge or ignoring the stooge. Point values assigned to each category were
used to calculate an index of the subjects’ behavioral indications of their emotional state.
In addition to the behavioral index, the subjects’ emotional states were evaluated
through self-report. Once the session with the stooge was complete, the experimenter
asked each subject to fill out a questionnaire concerning their emotional and physical
state. Subjects were told that this information was important in determining whether the
results of their vision tests were influenced by the subject’s emotional or physical state.
Two questions focused on emotional state: “How irritated, angry, or annoyed would you
say you feel at present?” and “How good or happy would you say you feel at present?”
Subjects answered these questions on a four-point scale ranging from “I don’t feel at all
angry or irritated [happy or good]” to “I feel extremely irritated and angry [happy and
good].” Two open-ended questions gave subjects another chance to comment on their
emotional and physical states. When the questionnaire was completed the subjects were
told the experiment was over and the need for the deception was explained. Subjects
filled out an additional questionnaire to determine if they had any previous knowledge or
suspicion of the experimental setup.
20
If the data are to fit Schachter’s hypotheses, the emotional level (as measured by
self-report and behavioral indices) of the subjects in the Euphoria condition ought to
conform to the following schema:
Epi Mis > Epi Ign > Epi Inf = Placebo
The emotional level of the subjects in the Anger condition (where an Epi Mis condition
was not run) ought to follow the pattern:
Epi Ign > Epi Inf = Placebo
The data was found to be consistent with these expectations. When subjects who were
suspicious of the experimental design were eliminated, emotional levels in the Epi Mis
and Epi Ign groups were significantly higher than those for subjects in the Epi Inf groups.
The levels for the placebo groups, however, consistently fall between those of the Epi Ign
and Epi Inf subjects. Schachter’s hypotheses suggest that the level of emotion in the
placebo groups ought to be equivalent to that of the Epi Inf groups. Specifically, Epi Inf
subjects should not become emotional at all because they have an alternative explanation
for their arousal; the placebo subjects ought not to become emotional because no state of
physiological arousal has been induced in those subjects.
The higher-than-expected emotional levels found in the placebo groups cast
doubt on the hypothesis that physiological arousal is a necessary component of an
emotional experience. Schachter and Singer use internal analysis to show that the data is
still consistent with this hypothesis. While an injection of epinephrine will induce
physiological arousal, a placebo injection will not prevent physiological arousal from
occurring. Measurements of pulse rates showed that some placebo group subjects
experienced a state of arousal even without the injection of epinephrine. Using pulse rate
21
as a measure of arousal, Schachter determined that emotional levels were, in fact,
significantly higher among subjects who experienced a state of physiological arousal
(whether the result of an epinephrine injection or not).
Let us review Schachter’s three initial hypotheses. First, if an individual finds
himself in a state of physiological arousal for which he has no immediate explanation, he
will “label” his arousal in terms of the cognitions available to him. Recalling the
Jamesian hypothesis, the similar states of arousal induced in the Epi subjects should have
produced similar emotional experiences. The data shows that this is not the case.
Subjects placed with the angry stooge tended to become angry or irritated while subjects
placed with the euphoric stooge tended to become happy and euphoric. Schachter takes
this evidence to suggest that emotions are not differentiated on the basis of a particular
quality of feel of a state of arousal; rather, emotions are differentiated on the basis of the
cognitions available to the subject.
The second hypothesis states that if the individual already has an immediate
explanation for his arousal he will feel no need to label his arousal in emotional terms.
Subjects in the Epi Inf knew that they would experience a state of arousal as a result of
their injection. This provided them with an immediate explanation for their arousal.
Accordingly, Epi Inf subjects in both the Anger and Euphoria conditions remained at
very low emotional levels throughout the experiment.
Finally, Schachter suggests that an individual will experience an emotion just to
the extent that he is experiencing a state of physiological arousal. The analysis discussed
above suggests that this is the case. A significant correlation is found between an
increase in pulse rate and an increase in emotional level.
22
Let us return to the peripheralist/ centralist debate with which we began.
According to Schachter, the peripheralists and the centralists are guilty of different
versions of the same error. James and the peripheralists have claimed an identity
between the various emotions and the perception of particular states of physiological
arousal. Cannon and the centralists claim an identity between emotion and the activation
of a particular lower brain stem structure. Schachter argues that his experiment can be
interpreted as an attack on the “identity assumption” that underlies both the peripheralist
and the centralist theories.
The criticism of the identity assumption implicit in the experiment is
straightforward in the case of the peripheralist project. The injection of epinephrine
induced a state of physiological arousal very similar to that experienced in emotional
responses. All Epi group subjects experienced a very similar state of physiological
arousal. According to the peripheralist, the subjects should have reported very similar
emotional states. Contrary to this expectation, the subjects reported experiencing very
different emotions depending on the situational cues that were offered to them.
Schachter’s criticism, then, is that we cannot equate an emotion with a particular state of
physiological arousal because we find subjects in very similar states of arousal but
reporting their emotional states to be quite different.
Schachter’s experimental design makes the criticism of the peripheralist view
straightforward, but the implications for the centralist are less obvious. As described
above, lesion studies and studies involving direct stimulation of brain structures led
Cannon to suggest that “the peculiar quality of the emotion is added to simple sensation
when the thalamic processes are roused” (1927, 120, italics in original). Schachter
23
writes: “The crucial question, of course, is this—does such brain manipulation inevitably
lead to modification of specified emotion or drive states, or are the consequences of such
manipulation contingent upon stimulus, environmental, or cognitive circumstances”
(1971). If an emotion is identical to the activation of a particular brain structure, then the
activation of that structure must invariably produce that emotion. Schachter appeals to
several studies to support his suspicion that the experience of an emotion, given the
activation of the proper brain center, is still contingent on the particular cognitions
available to the subject. R.R Hutchinson and J.W. Renfrew (1966) show that stimulation
of the same area of the lateral hypothalamus in a cat can lead either to predatory behavior
or to eating behavior depending on the situational cues available. E. Von Holst and U.
von Saint Paul (1962) demonstrate that an electrically stimulated rooster will exhibit
aggressive behavior only if a suitable enemy is present. Otherwise, the rooster exhibits
only the same motor restlessness that is exhibited when brain areas associated with
hunger, thirst, or courtship are stimulated in the absence of suitable objects of those
states.
Either directly stimulating the brain or inducing the physiological changes
associated with the emotions can produce emotions—but only in the presence of
appropriate situational cues. Schachter (1971) claims that if we wish to understand the
emotions we “will be forced to adopt a set of concepts with which most physiologically
inclined scientists feel somewhat uncomfortable and ill-at-ease” (54). Among these
concepts are “perception,” “cognition,” and “social situation.” A simple claim of identity
between an emotion and a particular state of physiological arousal or activation of a
particular brain center is doomed to fail because the emotion must always involve
24
more—specifically, it must involve appropriate cognitions and situational cues for the
state to be an emotion. If we ignore these necessary cognitive elements of emotion,
Schachter warns, we will be about as successful in deriving predictions about emotional
behavior as we would be at “predicting the destination of a moving automobile from an
exquisite knowledge of the workings of the internal combustion engine and of petroleum
chemistry” (1971, 55).
25
2.
The Reception, the Replications,
And the Results of the Schachter
And Singer Experiment
The theory of the emotions presented by Schachter and Singer in “Cognitive, Social, and
Physiological Determinants of Emotional State” (1962) immediately became popular and
spawned an enormous amount of research. Studies concerning not just the emotions, but
eating and obesity, psychopathy, individual differences in response to drugs, dissonance,
and attitude change were directly inspired by Schachter and Singers’ results (Reisenzein,
1983). Schachter himself applied the central ideas of his theory of the emotions to a
variety of other areas including nicotine addiction, stock market fluctuations, obesity, and
criminal behavior. Volumes such as 1974’s Thought and Feeling, edited by Harvey
London and Richard Nisbett, collected research from well-respected psychologists
specifically regarding Schachter’s theory of the emotions. Schachter’s students,
including Richard Nisbett, Lee Ross, Judith Rodin, and Bibb Latané, spent the early parts
26
of their own careers applying and developing aspects of Schachter’s ideas as well.
Before long, Schachter’s account of the emotions had become unquestionably the most
prominent of the cognitive approaches to the emotions (Reisenzein, 1983) and the
findings of the 1962 experiment had become one of the most cited experimental results in
Introduction to Psychology textbooks (Marshall and Zimbardo, 1979).
Audiences were well primed for Schachter’s cognition-arousal theory of the
emotions as presented in “Cognitive, Social, and Physiological Determinants of
Emotional State” (1962). Schachter’s view fit neatly with both of the two most important
psychological movements of the day. The first, attribution theory, found its first
formulation in 1958 with Fritz Heider’s The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations. The
fundamental concern of attribution theory is to understand the attributions made by each
of us as we navigate our environments and especially our interactions with other persons.
Heider considers a wide variety of types of attributions: attributions of intent, ability, or
desire to persons, attributions of cause or significance to events, and attribution of
particular properties to objects. Explaining or predicting an individual’s behavior is
largely a matter of understanding the attributions made by that person. For instance,
whether a woman attributes the cause of her headache to a possible pregnancy or to a
night of drinking will be all-important in predicting whether she goes to the store to buy a
pregnancy test or whether she will take an aspirin. Jerome Singer (1974) characterizes
Schachter’s theory of the emotions as trading on this same insight:
“a growing awareness and acceptance of…a straightforward and neglected
proposition: people do not exist in a world of physically defined forces and
events; they live in a world defined by their own perceptions, cognitions,
27
conclusions, and imaginations. That is, a person responds to and reacts to, not
some objective or experimenter-defined set of stimuli, but to his apperceptions
and subjectively-defined stimuli” (3).
Indeed, according to Schachter, explaining or predicting an individual’s behavior in
relation to an emotional episode will largely be a matter of determining whether she has
made a self-attribution of anger, or of fear, or of some other particular emotion. Much of
the research inspired by Schachter’s theory of the emotions focused on the various roles
of these self-attributions. For instance, Rossi, Kuehnle, and Mendelson (1978) found that
subjects tended to not report the effects of marijuana as pleasurable until the effects were
pointed out to the subjects as pleasurable and thus were led to a self-attribution of a
pleasurable experience.
The other key psychological movement of the day bearing clear affinities to
Schachter’s view of the emotions is dissonance theory as pioneered by Schachter’s
mentor, Leon Festinger (1957). Dissonance theory explores the relationships among an
individual’s particular cognitions and the ways in which an individual will work to
minimize conflict among these cognitions. Schachter’s view of the emotions intersects
with dissonance theory at several points. A dissonance begins the labeling process when
an individual who has taken herself to be in a calm state now recognizes that she is in a
state of physiological arousal. This individual will work to eliminate this dissonance,
perhaps, by instead taking herself to be angry or afraid—a cognition consonant with
finding oneself in a stirred-up state. The choice of a particular label can also be viewed
as an exercise in dissonance reduction. An individual chooses a label which will
minimize dissonance with the entirety of one’s cognitions, what Schachter calls one’s
28
“apperceptive mass” (1958). A label will be chosen for its consonance with cognitions
regarding one’s situation and expectations, cognitions regarding the relative strategic
value of particular labels, cognitions regarding the ethical acceptability of choosing a
particular label, and so on. Thus, Schachter was able to capitalize on the growing
popularity of both the attribution theory of Fritz Heider (1958) and the cognitive
dissonance theory of Schachter’s own mentor, Leon Festinger (1957).
Attempts to Replicate the Schachter and Singer Experiment
While Schachter and Singer’s 1962 experiment did become immediately popular and
influential it was not without critics. In 1967, Robert Plutchik and Albert Ax published a
three-page criticism of the experiment, focusing largely on defects in the experimental
design. Among Plutchik and Ax’s criticisms were that a double-blind methodology was
not used in the study—for instance, a researcher scoring angry behaviors performed in
the presence of the angry stooge knew that the subject was a member of the anger group.
Also, the pulse rate check used by Schachter and Singer to measure arousal were claimed
by Plutchik and Ax to be a questionable measure of overall arousal. Epinephrine can
increase the variability of pulse rate and pulse rate does not reliably correlate with other
measures of arousal. Plutchik and Ax also found that college students perceived the
‘Euphoria’ condition as one in which a variety of different emotions might be
appropriate: apprehension, curiosity, disgust, mirth, and irritation. The ambiguity of the
Euphoria situation (and perhaps the Anger situation as well) is likely to have affected the
self-report data.
29
These criticisms of the 1962 experiment do not appear to have taken hold until the
late 1970s when two attempts at replicating the Schachter and Singer experiment were
published together in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, along with a
response from Schachter and Singer. Replicating the Schachter and Singer experiment
proved to be a complicated affair. Both of the 1979 studies were not strict replications
but conceptual replications in which significant aspects of the original experimental
design had been changed. The authors of the two replications, Christina Maslach (1979)
and Gary Marshall and Philip Zimbardo (1979), point out several reasons that a strict
replication would be either difficult or undesirable.
A first reason that a strict replication would be difficult is the enormity of the task
itself. The original experiment involved 185 subjects, seven different experimental
conditions, and a labor-intensive experimental design. An attempt at a strict replication
would have been beyond the means of researchers such as Maslach and Marshall and
Zimbardo even if they had found this preferable to a conceptual replication. While the
results of a strict replication would be fascinating, Maslach and Marshall and Zimbardo
believe that the simpler designs of their conceptual replications are sufficient to test the
validity of Schachter and Singer’s study.
A second reason that a true replication would be difficult to carry out is the
inherent difficulties in replicating some aspects of the original study. Less quantifiable
aspects of the study, such as the details of the behavior of the angry and euphoric stooges,
promised to be difficult to recreate. The many important details, such as the precise
timings of the onset of arousal and exposure to the stooges, likewise promised to be
difficult to control.
30
A third reason that a strict replication would have been problematic relates to the
existing criticisms of the original experimental design. As discussed above, Robert
Plutchik and Albert Ax had published a critique of the experiment that questioned several
aspects of the experiment’s methodology: whether heart rate was a reliable measure of
subjects’ level of arousal, whether a double-blind methodology was used at various
points in the experiment, and whether the self-report measures were adequate to identify
cases of mixed emotional responses to the situations presented. These charges of
weakness in the original experimental design forced a dilemma on potential
replications—whether to adhere to the original experimental design with its alleged flaws
for a more strict replication or to attempt to modify the original design and settle for a
conceptual replication. Both Maslach and Marshall and Zimbardo opt for the conceptual
replication and both alter Schachter and Singer’s original design not just for simplicity,
but also to attempt to correct defects in the original design.
A fourth reason that a strict replication would be difficult or impossible took the
form of ethics review boards. One concern regarded the covert injection of subjects with
epinephrine. Some researchers (Marshall and Zimbardo, 1979; Mezzacappa et al., 1999)
were allowed to employ the covert injections of epinephrine with proper precautions such
as careful screening of medical records, continuous monitoring of physiological
functioning, and the availability of a cardiologist. However, other studies were forced to
generate arousal through other means: for instance, inducing arousal through posthypnotic suggestion (Maslach, 1979) or by employing Zillmann’s (1971) methods of
excitation transfer, in which arousal is induced through exercise, music, or a previous
emotional episode. In at least one case (Marshall and Zimbardo, 1979) a review board
31
ruled that it was unethical to induce anger in subjects and limited the researchers to
testing the euphoria conditions.
No true replication of Schachter and Singer’s 1962 experiment has ever been
performed, but the two conceptual replications by Christina Maslach (1979) and Gary
Marshall and Philip Zimbardo (1979) became extremely influential in the history of the
Schachter and Singer experiment.
The first of these two attempts at replication was performed by Christina Maslach
(1979). Maslach’s replication differed from the Schachter and Singer study in a number
of ways that Maslach claimed were meant to correct for methodological problems.
Instead of an injection of epinephrine, Maslach induced a state of arousal through
hypnosis. A posthypnotic suggestion for amnesia was used to ensure that the subjects
were unable to recall the true cause of their arousal. In addition, Maslach altered the
behavioral scripts for the angry and euphoric stooges with the intention of making the
conditions easier to compare. She also added a number of measures both to assess the
effectiveness of the experimental manipulations and to more precisely measure
differences in emotional behavior.
Maslach found her results to be at odds with Schachter and Singer’s claims on
several counts. Maslach’s subjects in the uninformed arousal conditions reported
experiencing a slightly negative emotional state in both the anger and the euphoria
conditions. At the same time, however, the behavior of the confederate did appear to
affect the overt emotional behaviors of the subjects in accordance with Schachter’s
hypotheses. Subjects in the euphoria conditions displayed a significantly greater number
of sociable behaviors (smiling, nodding, agreeing with the confederate) than those in the
32
anger conditions. Maslach, then, found her results to be at odds with Schachter and
Singer’s results in at least two ways. First, her results suggested that a state of
physiological arousal itself could bias subjects towards a negative emotional response—
the presence of the euphoric stooge failed to lead subjects to label their own emotional
states in a positive way. Second, her results suggested that self-reports of emotion and
overt emotional behaviors should not be considered equivalent indices of emotion—
subjects in the aroused, uninformed, euphoria condition behaved in a euphoric manner
but later claimed to be in a negative emotional state.
Schachter and Singer (1979) criticize the timing of the arousal induced in
Maslach’s study. Maslach tested whether subjects were in a state of arousal before being
sent into the room with the confederate. The several minutes of arousal that passed
before encountering the stooge would have led the subjects to consider their state of
arousal in relation to events occurring prior to the encounter with the stooge—perhaps the
subjects came to see themselves as nervous about the experiment or even getting sick. In
addition, Schachter and Singer note, the subjects had been put through an episode of
unexplained arousal even earlier in the experiment. Maslach had checked the
effectiveness of the hypnotic suggestion in the first part of the experiment and measured
subjects’ physiological responses. Thus, even before seeing the stooge, the subjects had
twice been thrown into a state of physiological arousal with no explanation and no reason
to think that this arousal had anything to do with the confederate. For Maslach to
maintain her claims, it would be necessary to demonstrate her same results in a condition
in which arousal is triggered a minute or two after the confederate begins his routine.
33
The second of the replications was performed by Gary Marshall and Philip
Zimbardo (1979). Because the Stanford University Medical School Human Subjects
Committee had ruled that it was unethical to induce anger in subjects, Marshall and
Zimbardo’s experimental design included only euphoria conditions. Furthermore,
Marshall and Zimbardo focused on the misinformed euphoria condition—the key
comparison for the study was between the misinformed arousal group and the
misinformed placebo group. Four other conditions were run for comparison, including
two groups that received higher dose levels of epinephrine.
Marshall and Zimbardo also found their results to be at odds with Schachter and
Singer’s claims. According to Marshall and Zimbardo, Schachter and Singer’s model
implies that euphoria subjects ought to become more and more euphoric the more their
level of arousal increased. Marshall and Zimbardo, however, found that this was not the
case. In fact, their subjects who received a large dose of epinephrine were the least
euphoric of the groups. Their subjects who received the normal dose of epinephrine were
just slightly less euphoric that the placebo group, the most euphoric group of all.
Marshall and Zimbardo, then, claim that their replication offers no support for Schachter
and Singer’s claims in the original experiment. Specifically, they claim that there is no
reason to think that inadequately explained arousal made subjects more susceptible than
placebo subjects to the induction of euphoria when in the presence of a euphoric
confederate. Marshall and Zimbardo conclude that epinephrine-induced arousal involves
an inherently negative affective bias as opposed to a neutral state of arousal.
Schachter and Singer (1979) reply that it was made clear in the 1962 study that
they themselves had not found a statistically significant difference between the
34
misinformed arousal group and the placebo group in the euphoria condition. Their
“conclusions about emotion were hardly based on the [1962] experiment alone” (991)
and they refer Marshall and Zimbardo to a larger body of literature that they believe lends
support to their hypotheses. Why then did Marshall and Zimbardo’s findings, though still
not statistically significant, lean in the opposite direction from that predicted by
Schachter and Singer’s thesis? Schachter and Singer respond that the subjects in the
Marshall and Zimbardo study were not actually misinformed regarding their state of
arousal. Schachter and Singer’s misinformed subjects were told to expect numbness in
the feet, itching, and a slight headache—effects not associated with an injection of
epinephrine. Marshall and Zimbardo’s misinformed subjects were told to expect dryness
of the mouth, coolness in the hands and feet, and a slight headache. Schachter and Singer
point out that coolness in the hands and feet has been reported as an effect of an injection
of epinephrine and those subjects thus ought to be considered informed as to the actual
explanation for their state of arousal. Regarding the statistically significant findings that
the misinformed heightened arousal subjects experienced more negative emotional states
than the placebo subjects, Schachter and Singer add that Marshall and Zimbardo must
have not tested their dose levels on themselves:
“At this dose, we did not have palpitations—our hearts pounded; we did not have
tremors—we shook. We might have been convinced by someone that we were
about to die, but no amount of social psychological tomfoolery could have
convinced us that we were euphoric, or angry, or excited, or indeed anything but
that something was very wrong and that we felt lousy” (991).
35
Schachter and Singer complain that such a high dose of epinephrine will obviously lead
to a negatively valenced affective state. It is no wonder that the subjects were not led to
describe themselves as euphoric by the activities of the euphoric stooge.
Schachter and Singer (1979) appear to effectively argue Maslach (1979) and
Marshall and Zimbardo (1979) to a stalemate. Maslach replies to Schachter and Singer’s
criticisms of the timings of arousal and exposure to the confederate by arguing that the
same bias towards negative affect occurred in pretesting and in an unpublished
experiment she performed with Philip Zimbardo. Marshall and Zimbardo (1979) appeal
to an internal analysis in an attempt to neutralize Schachter and Singer’s criticism that the
Marshall and Zimbardo misinformed arousal subjects were actually an informed arousal
group. According to their analysis, some subjects did attribute their arousal to the
injection but that those self-informing subjects showed levels of emotionality comparable
to those who did not self-inform.
Although I say that this episode resulted in a stalemate, the clear losers in the
exchange are Schachter and Singer. Schachter’s disdain for replications as an inferior
and wasteful sort of research is well documented by Schachter’s students and colleagues
(Ross, 1987). That attitude comes through very clearly in Schachter and Singer’s
criticisms. Concerning the Marshall and Zimbardo replication, Schachter and Singer
write: “[W]e find ourselves both bemused and perplexed by their strategy of replication.
The simple fact is that their experiment replicates ours too well. We never found a
difference between the conditions they chose to replicate, and neither do they” (990). As
for Maslach’s replication, Schachter and Singer offer this assessment:
36
“Because of these matters of timing, Maslach’s experiment and results have little
to do with our experiment or with our hypotheses. The study does, however,
unequivocally prove that when for no apparent reason, a subject’s heart starts
pounding, his or her breathing accelerates, palms turn sweaty, and stomach sinks,
his or her mood is not likely to be affected by the irrelevant behavior of a
confederate that follows after the appearance of this bodily state. The study also
proves that subjects, who again for no apparent reason, find themselves in this
bodily condition are likely to describe themselves as in a lousier mood than do
subjects to whom this does not happen” (italics added, 990).
These comments earned bitter responses from both Maslach (1979) and Marshall and
Zimbardo (1979) and both complained of Schachter and Singer’s “belittling” tone.
Maslach shifted her criticism towards questioning the value of an account of the emotions
that appeared to apply only to episodes that met such precise timing conditions. Marshall
and Zimbardo accuse Schachter and Singer of replacing evidence with rhetoric:
“It is important in this exchange to show briefly that both in their original article
and in their present comments on our study and Maslach’s, Schachter and Singer
sometimes use their considerable literary talent to misdirect the reader’s attention
toward inadequately justified conclusions such that what was ‘never found’
becomes one of the most cited findings in psychology textbooks” (1979, 985).
Absent from Schachter and Singer’s comments are any discussion of their account of the
emotions itself—focus is shifted entirely on the shortcomings of the replications.
Nowhere do they consider what impact the purported findings of the replications might
have on their view as a whole. Schachter and Singer are writing seventeen years after the
37
publication of “Cognitive, Social, and Physiological Determinants of Emotional State”
and each had moved on to other areas of interest. Still, the reader cannot help but think
of their dismissive response to the replications as a missed opportunity—a chance to
clarify their views or suggest how the replications might suggest further research.
Indeed, the two replications both focus on the same charge—that epinephrineinduced arousal does not lead subjects to perform an unbiased search for an emotional
label, but rather to a search that is biased towards negative emotional labels. Both
Maslach and Marshall and Zimbardo claim that Schachter and Singer are committed to
the view that epinephrine-induced arousal is an affectively neutral state that does not
itself contribute to the labeling of the emotion. Both replications conclude that
epinephrine-induced arousal does more than just motivate the search for an appropriate
label—it biases the search towards negative labels. Maslach suggests several
explanations. Perhaps there are simply more negative emotions than positive ones,
leading people to report more negative emotions on a purely statistical basis. Perhaps
physiological arousal in everyday life is more frequently correlated with negative affect
and an association between the two could be learned. Or, perhaps, the negative bias of
unexplained arousal can be explained through its similarity to a state of free-floating
anxiety. Are Schachter and Singer committed to the view that a state of epinephrineinduced arousal is an affectively neutral state that motivates but does not bias a resulting
choice of labels? In their comments on the replications, Schachter and Singer do not
explicitly address whether they believe themselves to be committed to this view or not.
However, this view appears to be at odds with much of what they do say both in their
comments on the replications and in the reporting of their 1962 experiment.
38
In their comments on the Marshall and Zimbardo study, Schachter and Singer do
come close to denying that they are committed to the view that epinephrine-induced
arousal constitutes an affectively neutral state. Schachter and Singer claim that it is
obvious that the increased dose levels of epinephrine in the Marshall and Zimbardo study
will lead to an negatively-biased affective state—that subjects in this intense state of
arousal might be convinced they were going to die but there was no possibility of
convincing them that they were happy or euphoric. Schachter and Singer were certainly
aware of the importance of the intensity of arousal. Schachter (1971) demonstrated that
while small doses of epinephrine facilitate emotional behavior in animals, larger doses
interfere with those same behaviors. The reporting of the 1962 experiment similarly does
not appear to commit Schachter and Singer to the view that epinephrine-induced arousal
is affectively neutral. Although they do assert that a proper level of epinephrine-induced
arousal can be labeled either as anger or euphoria, they do not assert that the arousal
itself is affectively neutral.
It is unclear why Schachter and Singer allow it to appear that Maslach and
Marshall and Zimbardo’s studies could constitute objections to their framework at all.
What the Maslach and Marshall and Zimbardo studies purport to show is that
epinephrine-induced arousal involves a negatively toned affective bias. If this claim
turns out to be true, there is no problem incorporating this insight into a larger
Schachterian framework. Indeed, this would appear to suggest further areas of research
that might be pursued within the framework of Schachter’s theory of the emotions. In
addition, the Maslach and the Marshall and Zimbardo studies can really only be
considered replications in the thinnest of senses. The methods and timings of inducing
39
arousal, the behaviors of the stooge, the self-report and behavioral measures, the
instructions given to the subjects and even which experimental conditions were run varies
enormously in both Maslach (1979) and Marshall and Zimbardo (1979) from the original
Schachter and Singer experiment. In their comments, Schachter and Singer (1979) had
the opportunity to emphasize both that these studies are best not considered replications
at all, and that their findings are not inconsistent with the claims of the 1962 experiment.
In addition, Schachter and Singer had the opportunity to provide a positive spin to the
replications by showing that their theory of the emotions was still capable of inspiring
new areas of research—in particular, whether various states of arousal involved negative
or positive affective bias that could affect the probability of a subject’s choosing
particular labels.
Schachter and Singer do not take the opportunity to do this positive work and
their responses to Maslach and Marshall and Zimbardo do leave a bitter taste in the
reader’s mouth. The Maslach (1979) and Marshall and Zimbardo (1979) studies are
generally considered to demonstrate a “failure to replicate” Schachter and Singer’s results
(Reisenzein, 1983). More thoughtful responses from Schachter and Singer might have
resulted in these studies being taken as a further step in research within a Schachterian
framework rather than as failures to replicate that struck at the foundation of Schachter
and Singer’s conception of emotion.
On the heels of the Maslach (1979) and Marshall and Zimbardo (1979)
replications, Rainer Reisenzein (1983) published what became an influential review of
Schachter’s theory of the emotions. Reisenzein’s review surveys studies relevant to three
particular deductions that follow from Schachter’s theory: (1) If arousal is blocked or
40
reduced in intensity, then the intensity of emotional state will be reduced proportionally;
(2) If an individual can be led to attribute artificially induced arousal to an emotional
source, then the emotional state will be intensified; and (3) If an individual can be led to
attribute arousal to a non-emotional source, then the intensity of the emotional state will
be reduced. In his discussion, Reisenzein concludes that empirical evidence for the first
deduction must be considered weak. The second claim, Reisenzein concludes, is
adequately supported by the empirical evidence. Finally, Reisenzein concludes that
evidence for the third proposition involves too much conflicting evidence and too many
alternative interpretations of the data available.
The Reisenzein review has been important in shaping attitudes towards
Schachter’s theory of the emotions. The Reisenzein review is often considered the “final
nail in the coffin” for Schachter’s theory of the emotions. This is surprising considering
that the conclusions of the review are not at all dire. Indeed, Reisenzein claims that the
Schachter and Singer experiment itself is an example of a test of the second deduction—
that an emotional state will be intensified if a subject can be led to attribute artificially
induced arousal to an emotional source. Reisenzein’s review appears to vindicate what
he believes is the main point of the Schachter and Singer experiment. In addition,
Reisenzein does not conclude that there is evidence that ought to cause us to reject the
first and third deductions. Rather, the first deduction just suffers from a lack of clear-cut
evidence, particularly due to several famously problematic studies regarding the
emotional lives of persons living with spinal cord injuries (Hohmann, 1966; Jasnos and
Hakmiller, 1975, Cobos et al, 2004). The third deduction finds support from many of the
studies considered by Reisenzein, however, the possibility of alternative interpretations
41
leads Reisenzein to conclude that more evidence is required to rule out those
interpretations. While not a friendly review overall, Reisenzein’s review is not the clear
refutation of Schachter’s theory that many believe it to be.
After the publication of the attempts at replicating Schachter and Singer’s results
and the Reisenzein review, Schachter’s theory of the emotions appears to have slipped
from the psychological literature. Philosophers, however, have continued to discuss the
Schachter and Singer experiment even up to the present day. Philosophers have tended
not to adopt Schachter’s view of the emotions itself, but have seen fit to address the
Schachter and Singer experiment in relation to their own views of the emotions. Robert
Solomon (1976) takes the results to be completely unsurprising. Solomon laments that
the National Science Foundation would provide funding for an experiment that proves
only “what any philosopher worth his salt could prove to be a logical truth in a matter of
an hour or so” (95). Robert Gordon (1987) accuses Schachter and Singer of stretching
their results into a radical theory of the emotions. According to Gordon, Schachter’s
theory is just another attempt by social psychologists to introduce an element of
irrationality into seemingly ordinary human affairs. Paul Griffiths (1997) wonders at the
“inordinate” interest that philosophers have shown in the experiment—especially given
his view that the subjects simply confabulate and there is nothing more to be said.
Gordon and Griffiths in particular have been influenced by the Reisenzein review in that
they have adopted a particular version of Schachter’s theory, the causal attribution view,
which I will show later cannot be a satisfactory version of Schachter’s theory and is at
odds with Schachter’s own formulations of his theory. While philosophers have tended
to adopt this flawed version of Schachter’s view, philosophers must also largely be
42
credited with keeping Schachter’s view of the emotions as part of the emotion theory
literature.
Having considered a sketch of the history of the Schachter and Singer experiment
and Schachter’s theory of the emotions, we ought to now consider more specifically the
Schachter and Singer experiment itself. In the next section I will consider some of the
flaws of the experiment.
Problems with the Schachter and Singer Experiment
While I believe that Schachter presents a powerful and viable theory of the emotions in
“Cognitive, Social, and Physiological Determinants of Emotional State”, there are serious
questions that must be addressed regarding both the design of the experiment and the data
itself. Schachter and Singer themselves later admitted that the experiment could not by
itself justify the theory of the emotions that was outlined in the reporting of the
experiment (1979). In this section, I will examine what appear to be the most serious
problems with the experiment. While it is important to recognize the problems with the
experiment, we should also avoid the pervasive error of taking criticisms of the 1962
experiment to constitute refutations of Schachter’s view of the emotions in general.
We can begin by considering two problems with the data collected by Schachter
and Singer. First, if the data are to fit Schachter and Singer’s hypotheses, we should find
that placebo subjects display significantly fewer emotional behaviors than Epi Ign and
Epi Mis groups in both the anger and the euphoria conditions. This expectation was met
in the anger condition but not in the euphoria condition. In the euphoria condition Epi
Ign and Epi Mis subjects behaved slightly more euphorically than placebo subjects but
43
not significantly so. Schachter and Singer account for this failure by claiming that some
of the Epi Ign and Epi Mis subjects in the euphoria condition attributed their arousal to
the injection despite the cover story offered by the experimenter. When these selfinformed subjects are eliminated from the analysis both the Epi Ign and Epi Mis groups
did display significantly more euphoric behaviors than the placebo group. Still,
Schachter and Singer’s case would be more satisfactory if such internal analyses had not
been required.
A second problem cannot be explained away through internal analysis. We would
expect that subjects in the anger conditions would rate themselves as irritated and angry
on the self-report scales, while euphoria subjects would rate themselves as feeling happy
and good. This expectation was not fully met. In fact, there was little difference between
the anger and the euphoria groups—the largest between-group difference reached only
0.9 on the nine point self-report scale. Each of the groups in both the anger and the
euphoria conditions reported feeling slightly happy. This is a very unexpected result
which appears strongly contrary to what would be predicted from Schachter and Singer’s
hypotheses. In the next section I will consider three strategies for showing that this result
is at least not inconsistent with Schachter and Singer’s hypotheses.
We can now consider two significant problems with the design of the experiment
itself. The first problematic aspect of the design concerns the use of epinephrine to
induce states of arousal in subjects. Robert Plutchick and Albert Ax (1967) point out that
there are large individual differences in response to drugs and some check on arousal is
necessary to determine whether the proper state of arousal has been induced. Schachter
and Singer did in fact provide such a check by measuring pulse rate. However, it is
44
unclear if pulse rate is a satisfactory indicator of generalized physiological arousal.
Plutchik and Ax point out that pulse rate does not correlate well with other measures of
physiological arousal and that epinephrine is known to increase variability of heart rate.
These factors limit the value of the pulse rate measure as an indicator of generalized
arousal.
As seen above in the discussion of the attempts at replicating the Schachter and
Singer experiment, both Maslach (1979) and Marshall and Zimbardo (1979) criticize the
assumption that epinephrine induces an affectively neutral state of physiological arousal.
According to Maslach, this assumption leaves us unable to claim with Schachter and
Singer that it is available cognitions alone, and not the nature of the arousal itself, that
determines which particular emotion results.
A second problem regarding the design of the experiment involves ambiguities
concerning precisely what cognitions are to be understood as influencing a subject’s
choice of label. At least three ambiguities can be identified which leave us unable to
determine which cognitions are playing a role in determining the choice of an emotional
label by the subjects. First, the situations into which the subjects were placed are
themselves ambiguous in that a wide variety of emotional responses could be appropriate
beyond ‘I am angry’ or ‘I am happy’—the only two responses on Schachter and Singer’s
self-report index. In the anger condition, the subject is asked to fill out a somewhat
offensive questionnaire in the presence of the stooge trained to respond angrily to the
questionnaire. A wide variety of particular emotions could be completely appropriate in
this situation. The subject could be angry about the offensive questionnaire. However,
the subject could just as well be irritated by the stooge’s complaining. Indeed, even
45
emotions of a positive valence could be appropriate to the situation presented in the anger
conditions. The subject might be amused by the angry stooge’s antics or sensitivity. The
subject could find the somewhat offensive questionnaire entertaining since some of the
questions could be considered funny—‘Which member of your family ought to bathe
more often?’ The subject could also be pleased that he is having such an easy time
getting through the experiment as compared with the strangely neurotic subject with
whom he has been placed. Emotions of a more neutral tone could also be appropriate.
The subject might be mostly confused by the stooge’s strong response to the
questionnaire or might be looking forward to finishing the experiment and getting away
from these strange persons with whom he has been forced to interact.
Similar ambiguity can be found in the euphoria condition. The experimental
design suggests that the situation presented in the euphoria condition will lead to a state
of happiness or euphoria. This may indeed be the case. However, the subject might be
annoyed by the manic behavior of the stooge or afraid that the experimenters will be
upset if they find the waiting room littered with paper airplanes and improvised hulahoops. The subject might experience a more mildly negative apprehension about going
along with the antics of the stooge or might experience a mildly positive curiosity about
what the stooge might do next. In fact, in both the anger and the euphoria conditions, it is
likely that the subject will experience a number of emotions during his contact with the
stooge. It is important to note that both the self-report and behavioral indices of
emotional response used in the experiment only track a subject’s emotional response
along one scale—from irritated and angry on one extreme to happy and good on the
other. There is no means by which mixed or multiple, distinct emotional responses might
46
be measured. So, it appears that the single scale of emotionality may not adequately
represent the range of subjects’ emotional responses due to both the wide range of
potentially appropriate responses and the possibility of multiple emotional responses.
This, then, is the first ambiguity regarding what cognitions are meant to influence the
subject’s choice of label—the features of the situations presented are ambiguous in that
they allow for a wide range of appropriate emotional responses beyond ‘I am happy’ or ‘I
am angry’.
The second ambiguity regarding what cognitions are meant to lead the subject to a
particular choice of labels in the experiment concerns the relative importance of social
comparison processes that might be understood to be operative in the situations in which
the subjects have been placed. In brief, are the subjects meant to become angry or
euphoric simply because the stooge is angry or euphoric or are other aspects of the
situation meant to influence the subject as well? The euphoria situation seems to rely
more straightforwardly on social comparison processes than the anger situation. In the
euphoria condition, the subject has received no good news and nothing in the waiting
room itself appears to suggest that there is any reason to be euphoric. It is only the
presence of the euphoric stooge that suggests euphoria as an appropriate emotional
response. In the anger condition, there is at least one reason that the subject might
become angry even aside from the presence of the angry stooge—the somewhat offensive
questionnaire. The questionnaire itself, however, can probably only be considered mildly
offensive, and would likely not elicit anger were it not for the influence of the stooge.
Given that the anger condition appears to rely heavily on and the euphoria
condition relies almost solely on social comparison processes, we ought to consider
47
whether a subject ought to be expected to appeal to social comparison processes in the
situations presented. Because the subject believes the stooge to be another subject in the
experiment, it is likely that the subject would consider the stooge to be a person similar to
himself who finds himself in a similar plight. This does suggest that social comparison
processes would come into play (Schachter, 1959). However, an additional factor
requires that the subject see the stooge as a reasonable point of comparison—otherwise
the stooge’s response will be rejected as deviant and not serve as a point of comparison at
all. The behavior of the stooge in both conditions is unusual—it is likely to be regarded
as strange behavior either to storm out of or to begin hula hooping in the middle of a
scientific experiment. If the subject sees this behavior as clearly inappropriate, the stooge
will be rejected as a point of comparison and social comparison processes will not be
used to guide his own response. Indeed, in the likely event that the stooge is rejected as a
point of comparison, the stooge will then be considered as an aspect of the situation itself.
At this point, we would expect that the subject’s emotional response will likely be
directed toward the stooge himself—curiosity about the stooge, irritation with the
stooge’s antics, or concern over the impact of the stooge’s behavior on the experiment or
the promised extra credit. It appears likely that the stooge will be rejected as a point of
comparison and the subject’s emotional response will fail to be funneled by social
comparison processes toward the anger or euphoria displayed by the stooge.
I have so far considered two ambiguities regarding which cognitions might be
operative in directing a subject’s choice of label in the experiment. First, there is
ambiguity in the features of the situations themselves as presented to the subjects—a
variety of labels of positive or negative or neutral valence might be considered
48
appropriate to either condition. Second, there is ambiguity regarding the role of social
comparison processes—it is unclear whether social comparison processes would have
been operative and to what degree Schachter and Singer intended to rely on social
comparison processes to direct the response of the subject.
The third ambiguity to be considered regarding which cognitions are supposed to
lead a subject to choose a particular label concerns the degree to which a variety of
normative factors may influence a subject’s choice of labels in the experiment. In an
idealized version of the experiment, we can imagine that all subjects appeal to social
comparison processes in determining an appropriate response. All subjects accept the
response of the stooge and become either angry or euphoric themselves. In this idealized
case, the cognitions relevant to the subject’s choice of label all concern the response of
the stooge—“This fellow is angry, therefore anger must be the appropriate response for
me as well”. We saw above that this idealized sole reliance on social comparison
processes is unlikely. In fact, it appears very likely that the stooge would be rejected as a
point of comparison due to his eccentric behavior. As I emphasize throughout this
project, a wide array of normative factors may enter into an individual’s determination of
an appropriate label for her state of physiological arousal. In the experiment, for
example, it is likely that subjects will take into account that there are particular norms
regarding conduct in a scientific laboratory or while under the direction of a scientific
researcher, and the angry or euphoric response of the stooge will be taken to conflict with
these norms. Or, alternatively, the subject may judge that an angry or euphoric response
similar to that displayed by the stooge may endanger the extra credit that the subject
hopes to earn. Or, the subject may even appeal to general lessons learned in past
49
experience—for instance, that it is best to temper one’s emotional responses when in
unfamiliar circumstances. Since it appears from the experimental design that Schachter
and Singer intended cognitions regarding social comparison to themselves be perhaps
sufficient for determining an appropriate label I think it is fair to say that they have
drastically underestimated the range of cognitions that would likely be brought to bear on
the determination of an appropriate emotional response.
There is an interesting tension among these various complaints that can be made
concerning Schachter and Singer’s 1962 experiment. Perhaps the most damning
objection to the study is the fact that each of the groups reported being slightly happy.
The euphoria subjects did report being happier than the anger subjects but the fact that
the anger subjects still fell on the positive side of the emotion scale is troublesome. This
result is even more unusual when we consider that both Maslach (1979) and Marshall and
Zimbardo (1979) concluded that epinephrine induced physiological arousal itself
involves a negative affective tone. If epinephrine induced arousal itself is negatively
valenced, how did even the anger subjects end up on the positive side of the emotion
spectrum?
Although Schachter and Singer are not specific regarding the degree to which
social comparison processes are meant to determine a subject’s choice of a particular
label, it appears from the experimental design that social comparison processes were
supposed to play a key role. I am skeptical that social comparison processes played such
a primary role. The behavior of the stooges in each of the conditions is highly unusual
and I suspect that many subjects would be wary of joining in the antics. The stooge
would likely be rejected as a point of comparison for determining an appropriate
50
response. Let us consider, then, the perspective of the subjects once they have left the
session with the stooge and have been asked to complete the self-report questionnaire. It
is possible that the influence of the stooge worked as planned—the subject is either angry
or euphoric and this self-attribution carries over into the next stage of the experiment in
which the self-report questionnaire is completed. These subjects we would expect to
report being angry or euphoric in accordance with the behavior of the stooge. However, I
believe that social comparison processes were likely not so successful as Schachter and
Singer may have hoped. In this case, the subject will appeal to a much wider range of
criteria in determining an appropriate label.
If this is the case, I believe that it would be likely that we would find data much
like those that were obtained. The subject may be unsure what to think of the unusual
session with the stooge and appeal to norms regarding conduct during a scientific study in
a laboratory in order to determine an appropriate response. It would be inappropriate to
be angry during the study in the laboratory and it would be inappropriate to be too happy
as well—indeed, the subjects were told as part of the cover story that their emotional state
could impact the results of the study. Thus, we might expect that responses would tend
toward ‘slightly happy’. The subject, in either condition, may be relieved to be rid of the
stooge or amused by the unusual behavior displayed by the stooge—also leading to a
likely report of ‘slightly happy’. The subject may also feel hesitant in general towards
admitting negative affect to an authority figure—the researcher. The subject may
determine that if he was irritated by the session with the stooge that this had nothing to do
with the researcher or the experiment itself and he may tend to discount this “irrelevant”
negative affect in reporting his emotional state. Finally, the subject may tie any negative
51
affect specifically to the stooge and decide that this negative affect is not appropriate now
that the session alone with the stooge is over. All in all, when asked to report on one’s
own emotional state, is it not our general practice to report that we are ‘slightly happy’?
I have identified four important problems with Schachter and Singer’s 1962
experiment. There are two problems regarding the data collected:
1. Placebo subjects should have displayed significantly fewer emotional
behaviors than Epi Ign and Epi Mis subjects. This was the case in the anger
condition but not in the euphoria condition. Schachter and Singer explain that
some Epi Ign and Epi Mis subjects reported later that they had recognized the
injection as the source of their arousal. When these subjects are removed
from the analysis, the Epi Ign and Epi Mis subjects did perform more
emotional behaviors than the placebo subjects in both conditions. This
internal analysis solves the problem but it would be more satisfactory if it had
not been required.
2. Subjects in the anger condition ought to have reported feeling angry and
subjects in the euphoria condition should have reported feeling happy.
However, all groups reported feeling slightly happy. This is a big problem. I
have suggested reasons why the subjects may have tended to report feeling
slightly happy—the session with the stooge was already finished and they
hoped to leave that experience behind them, or perhaps they were concerned
they would not be allowed to continue in the study since they had been told
that it could affect their results. Many plausible explanations can be offered
but this still remains the most significant problem with the experiment.
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I have also discussed two problems with the experimental design:
1. Epinephrine is not ideal as a method of inducing arousal. Individual
responses can vary and can fluctuate over time. Schachter and Singer tested
heart rate to check for arousal but heart rate does not always correlate with
other aspects of physiological arousal. In addition, Maslach (1979) and
Marshall and Zimbardo (1979) both find that epinephrine generates a
negatively valenced state of arousal. A more effective means of inducing
arousal would have been preferable but it is not clear whether this would have
been better or worse for Schachter and Singer’s hypotheses.
2. It is unclear which cognitions are meant to lead subjects to become angry in
the anger condition and euphoric in the euphoria condition. The stooge is the
focus of the experimental design, suggesting that social comparison processes
are meant to play a primary role. However, the eccentric behavior of the
stooge would likely lead to the stooge being rejected as a point of comparison.
The situations themselves are ambiguous—the anger condition could be
amusing if the stooge struck you as ridiculous, the euphoria condition could
be irritating if you were concerned that the experimenter would be angry that
you were throwing paper airplanes out the window. Standards of behavior in
a laboratory setting, being able to complete the experiment to earn the extra
credit and similar concerns also complicate the picture. More careful control
of these factors may have led to more clear-cut results.
53
What We Can Learn from the Schachter and Singer Experiment
Given the problems with Schachter and Singer’s 1962 experiment discussed in the
previous section, is there any support to be found within the experiment for the view of
the emotions that Schachter recommends? I claimed earlier that Schachter presents a
stronger and a weaker set of conclusions that might be drawn from the experiment. The
stronger set of claims consists of the three hypotheses to be tested that are detailed in the
reporting of the 1962 experiment. The weaker set of claims, as described in Schachter’s
Emotion, Obesity, and Crime (1971), focuses on the experiment as putting an end to the
ongoing centralist/peripheralist controversy by showing that neither approach can
account for the importance of cognitive factors involved in emotional states. In order to
assess what might be learned from the Schachter and Singer experiment, despite the
difficulties described above, I will consider whether the data might still support the
conclusions as put forth by Schachter in both the stronger and the weaker formulations.
First we can consider the hypotheses as originally formulated by Schachter.
Recall the first hypothesis:
“1. Given a state of physiological arousal for which an individual has no
immediate explanation, he will ‘label’ this state and describe his feelings in terms
of the cognitions available to him. To the extent that cognitive factors are potent
determiners of emotional states, it could be anticipated that precisely the same
state of physiological arousal could be labeled ‘joy’ or ‘fury’ or ‘jealousy’ or any
of a great diversity of emotional labels depending on the cognitive aspects of the
situation” (1962, 381-382)
54
The support for this hypothesis is undermined by the fact that both the euphoria and the
anger groups reported being ‘slightly happy’. Schachter and Singer point out that the
euphoria group subjects were happier than the anger subjects but the hypothesis clearly
suggests that the anger subjects ought to be angry—not just ‘slightly less happy’ than the
euphoria subjects. I can imagine at least three strategies for trying to salvage some
support for the first hypothesis or at least show that the data need not be seen as
necessarily inconsistent with the first hypothesis.
First, I suggested in the last section that social comparison processes did not play
as great a role in shaping the subjects’ emotional responses as Schachter and Singer
anticipated. Thus, the subjects did not blindly “go along” with the stooge, but instead
appealed to a wider range of concerns in determining an appropriate response. I also
claimed in the last section that the pattern of data collected would not be surprising if this
had in fact occurred. This may not salvage positive support for the first hypothesis but it
does appear to show that the data needn’t be understood as plainly inconsistent with the
theory.
Second, both anger and euphoria subjects claimed to be ‘slightly happy’ in their
self-reports—these can be compared because they are both measured against the same
self-report scale. The behavioral indices are not so readily compared. However, in the
Schachter and Singer experiment (1962) and both the Maslach (1979) and Marshall and
Zimbardo (1979) replications angry subjects did perform a significant number of “angry”
behaviors and euphoria subjects did perform a significant number of “euphoric”
behaviors. Although the self-report index suggests that there was little difference
55
between the anger and euphoria subjects, the behavioral index appears to suggest a
significant difference. I believe that this does salvage some support for the first
hypothesis. Even if the self-report data is ambiguous, the euphoria subjects did appear to
be euphoric as evidenced by their scores on the behavioral index and the anger subjects
appeared to be angry as evidenced by their scores on the behavioral index.
Third, there is an interesting tension among the problems with the experiment
discussed in the previous section that might suggest a positive spin on the troublesome
self-report data. The primary lesson suggested by both Maslach (1979) and Marshall and
Zimbardo (1979) regarding their replications is that epinephrine-induced arousal itself
involves a negative valence. If this is the case, and if the first hypothesis were false, then
it would appear that all of the groups ought to have fallen on the ‘angry or irritated’ side
of the self-report scale. The fact that the subjects reported being ‘slightly happy’ appears
to suggest that their emotional responses have been shaped by some factor other than the
negatively valenced epinephrine-induced arousal alone. If I am correct that social
comparison processes failed to take hold of many subjects, then ‘slightly happy’ appears
to be a reasonable choice of labels given the situation of the subjects and the set of
applicable norms. The unusual self-report data could then itself be seen as evidence of a
cognitive directing of a negatively valenced state of arousal towards a slightly positive
emotional state that is more in line with proper conduct in a scientific laboratory. This
admittedly friendly interpretation of the data ventures away from the experiment itself,
but I believe it does lend some support for the truth of the first hypothesis. All in all, it
appears that the experiment itself might provide some, but hardly strong, support for the
first hypothesis.
56
Schachter and Singer’s second hypothesis reads:
“Given a state of physiological arousal for which an individual has a completely
appropriate explanation…no evaluative needs will arise and the individual is
unlikely to label his feelings in terms of the alternative cognitions available”
(1962, 382).
The second hypothesis is supported by the fact that arousal subjects informed of the
effects of the injection were scored as significantly less angry or euphoric than those who
were kept ignorant of the effects of the injection. The support for the second hypothesis
appears to be surprisingly strong and consistent—the epinephrine-informed groups were
scored as significantly less emotional than the epinephrine-ignorant groups. When a
subject already had an explanation for his state of arousal, he was less likely to look to his
situation and employ an emotional label chosen as appropriate to his situation. Neither
the Maslach (1979) nor the Marshall and Zimbardo (1979) replications contradicted this
finding.
Finally, the third hypothesis:
“Given the same cognitive circumstances, the individual will react emotionally or
describe his feelings only to the extent that he experiences a state of physiological
arousal” (1962, 382).
Data regarding the placebo groups makes assessing the support for this third hypothesis
complicated. The placebo groups consistently fell between the epinephrine-informed and
the epinephrine-ignorant groups on the scales of emotionality. According to the third
57
hypothesis the placebo groups should not have become emotional at all since no state of
physiological arousal had been induced. Indeed, according to Schachter’s model, both
the epinephrine-informed group and the placebo groups should have not responded
emotionally—the epinephrine-informed group because of the availability of a ready
explanation for the arousal, and the placebo group because of the lack of a state of
physiological arousal.
The fact that the placebo groups did become emotional calls into question whether
a state of physiological arousal is necessary for an individual to be in an emotional state.
Schachter and Singer (1962) salvage support for the third hypothesis by pointing out the
possibility that subjects had become “self-aroused”—that is, some placebo subjects
entered a state of physiological arousal during their session with the stooge even without
having been injected with epinephrine. As evidence for this possibility, Schachter and
Singer show that placebo subjects who reported higher levels of emotionality were also
found to have a higher pulse rate upon the completion of the session with the stooge.
Indeed, if self-aroused subjects are eliminated, then the levels of emotionality of placebo
subjects do fall to the levels found in the epinephrine-informed groups. This internal
analysis does bring the data back in line with expectations. However, this internal
analysis is complicated by Plutchik and Ax’s (1968) claim that pulse rate is an inadequate
measure of generalized physiological arousal. Overall, support for the third hypothesis
would be more satisfactory if internal analysis were not required and if the effectiveness
of pulse rate as a measure for physiological arousal were better established.
There does appear to be some degree of support for each of the three hypotheses
put forth by Schachter and Singer in the 1962 reporting of the famous experiment. The
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first hypothesis, that an individual will label his state of arousal in terms of the cognitions
available to him, does find some support in the behavioral data. Subjects in the anger
conditions did behave angrily and subjects in the euphoria condition did behave
euphorically. The self-report data, however, is problematic. I think that the first
hypothesis can be shown to be consistent with the self-report data but that some
conjecture must be introduced in order to turn the collected data into support for that
hypothesis.
The second hypothesis, that an individual with an immediate explanation for her
arousal will not label her state in terms of other available cognitions, does appear to find
support through the experiment—subjects who were informed of the effects of the
injection did, in accordance with predictions, become less emotional than those who were
not informed of the effects of the injection. The third hypothesis maintains some support
through internal analysis but that support must be considered potentially problematic due
to concerns over pulse rate as an effective measurement of generalized arousal.
So, some support for Schachter’s theory of the emotions can be garnered from the
experiment itself. However, as Schachter himself recognized, the view should not be
seen as supported by the 1962 experiment alone. In the following chapters I will attempt
to provide additional evidence for Schachter’s view and show that Schachter’s view can
solve current problems in emotion theory. I will also attempt to elucidate the important
concepts involved in Schachter’s theory and show how they might be used to guide
further research. I believe that I can develop a version of Schachter’s theory which both
accurately reflects the theory that Schachter intended and constitutes a viable theory of
the emotions.
59
As discussed above, Schachter presents the results of the 1962 experiment in a
different light in 1971’s Emotion, Obesity, and Crime—specifically, Schachter frames the
experiment as a refutation of both the peripheralist and centralist views of the emotions as
discussed in Chapter One. In the next chapter, I will show that Schachter’s criticisms are
still equally valid in relation to contemporary versions of peripheralist and centralist
theories. Schachter’s theory will likewise allow us to highlight the shortcomings of
judgment theories of the emotions—a cluster of emotion theories which may have taken
too far Schachter’s recommendation to not ignore the cognitive aspects of the emotions.
Indeed, we can see that even just the Schachter and Singer experiment itself
creates difficulties for many of these views. Peripheralist theories, which identify
emotions with states of physiological arousal, cannot explain why individuals in similar
states of arousal behave angrily in one situation and euphorically in another. Judgment
theories, which identify emotions with characteristic cognitive activity, cannot explain
why individuals in states of physiological arousal tend to become emotional while
subjects who are not in states of physiological arousal tend to not become emotional. In
the following chapters I will consider more elaborate, contemporary versions of these
theories and show why these views cannot stand up to Schachter’s criticisms.
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3.
Neo-Centralists and Neo-Peripheralists
According to Schachter’s theory, an emotional episode involves the functioning of two
semi-independent processes. First, throughout the course of an emotional episode, an
individual will undergo a state of physiological arousal. Changes in heart rate, breathing
patterns, hormone levels, and muscle tension may be among the components of this state
of arousal. The state of physiological arousal is likely to fluctuate throughout the course
of the emotional episode. Second, throughout the course of an emotional episode, the
individual will go through a cognitive process of determining an appropriate selfattribution that can make sense of the stirred-up state in which he finds himself—this is
the labeling process. If he has just been insulted he is likely to consider himself angry or
embarrassed. If he has discovered his beloved in the arms of a rival suitor he may come
to label his state as jealousy or as sadness. If he has been taking a cold medicine that he
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knows can cause the physiological symptoms he is experiencing he may determine that
strung out on cold medicine is the most reasonable label to use to describe his state.
These self-attributions can change throughout the course of the emotional episode.
We saw in the last chapter that there are some claims we can make regarding the
functioning of these systems based on the 1962 Schachter and Singer experiment itself.
Although internal analysis was required, we did find that subjects were significantly more
likely to become emotional if they were in a state of physiological arousal for which they
had no immediate explanation than if there was no state of arousal present. We found
fairly strong evidence that subjects were unlikely to consider themselves to be in an
emotional state if they attributed their state of arousal to the injection they had received.
We also found some, admittedly problematic, evidence that an individual in a state of
physiological arousal for which he has no immediate explanation will come to label his
state in terms of the cognitions available to him. Subjects in the same state of
physiological arousal were led to behave angrily or to behave euphorically depending on
the situation in which they had been placed. This claim is complicated due to the
subjects’ self-reports in which all groups claimed to be ‘slightly happy’. While this does
make the results problematic, the behavioral data is significant and I have offered not
entirely unreasonable explanations for why this unexpected result occurred.
Schachter (1971) had hoped that the 1962 experiment would put an end to the
ongoing debate between the peripheralists and the centralists. The peripheralists, inspired
by William James, had focused on the search for emotion specific physiology. The
perception of the state of arousal specific to anger would be the emotion anger and the
perception of the state of arousal specific to euphoria would be the emotion euphoria.
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The peripheralist picture is undermined to the degree to which we are satisfied that
Schachter’s subjects in the anger condition did become angry and the subjects in the
euphoria condition did become euphoric. Since the same state of arousal had been
induced in both groups, they ought to have experienced the same emotional state
according to the peripheralist hypothesis.
The 1962 experiment, however, is not the only source for objections to the
peripheralist program. In Chapter One I reviewed objections raised against the
peripheralist hypothesis in the decades before the Schachter and Singer experiment. In
this chapter I will consider the new generation of peripheralist theories which have
gained popularity in recent years. From a Schachterian perspective, the research carried
out by these peripheralists is absolutely essential to explaining the emotions. Indeed, the
states of arousal which are the focus of the peripheralist are a good half of the story when
it comes to the emotions as a whole. However, the neo-peripheralist theories still suffer
from the same defect which was the focus of Schachter’s complaints—they have failed to
recognize the importance of the cognitive aspects of the emotions in an account of the
emotions as a whole.
Schachter had hoped that the 1962 experiment would highlight the same
shortcoming in the centralist project inspired by Walter B. Cannon (1927). Cannon
argued that activation of the thalamus, a small region in the center of the brain, added an
emotional quality to an individual’s ordinary perceptions. Neuroscience has come a long
way since 1927 and the neurosciences have been a source of countless discoveries
concerning the emotions in recent years. Research carried out in the neurosciences is
more than welcome from a Schachterian perspective. Neuroscience holds the greatest
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promise for discovering how various aspects of states of physiological arousal are
controlled and has already begun to show how cognitive activity in the cortex is able to
modulate states of arousal themselves (LeDoux, 1996). This is great news for a
Schachterian as it appears to give us the first glimpses of a mechanism through which
cognitive activity in the cortex is able to interact with subcortical centers controlling
states of physiological arousal.
However, recent work in the neurosciences has been too quick to identify
particular emotions with particular patterns of activation in the brain. This is the same
complaint that Schachter leveled against centralists over 40 years ago. In this chapter I
will discuss this problem and show that this error has resulted in very clear and
straightforward errors in the interpretation of data collected in the lab. At the same time,
I will consider the ways in which this invaluable research can be incorporated into a
Schachterian framework.
We have so far focused largely on Schachter’s theory of the emotions as it relates
to emotional responses in the laboratory. In order to show how a Schachterian theory
relates to emotional episodes outside of the laboratory I will begin by discussing some
examples. Consideration of these cases has two functions. First, I hope that these cases
will highlight some of the distinctive aspects of Schachter’s theory and perhaps lend
some plausibility to the view just by showing that the theory can be connected up to these
everyday emotional episodes. Second, I expect that these cases will reveal aspects of the
theory which will require further explanation and argument. Later in the chapter, when I
consider various neo-peripheralist and neo-centralist theories, I will begin to fill in these
gaps by appealing to the research of neo-peripheralists and neo-centralists.
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Labeling in Action
Imagine your peaceful hike through the woods being interrupted by the unexpected sight
of a human figure standing further down the trail. Caught off guard, you pause, stop
breathing for a moment, and strain to make out the features of the shadowy figure. Your
thoughts are no longer concerned with how long it may take you to get back or with the
beauty of the surroundings—your attention is now focused solely on your unexpected
encounter with this unknown person. As the person begins to approach you feel your
heart racing and the muscles in your face and hands tense.
It would be surprising if this were not your response in this situation. The
unexpected sight of an unknown person in unfamiliar surroundings is bound to elicit this
sort of physiological response—an emotional response, we might say. But, if we want to
call this state of arousal an emotion, precisely which emotion is this? With only this
much of the story it would be difficult even to hazard a guess. If you observe the
shadowy figure beginning to act suspiciously, or if you are able to make out the large
knife he is carrying, we could make a good guess that your state of arousal might then be
called fear, or some related state, such as terror, or at least the milder concern. Of
course, you may be of an unusual disposition and find the possibility of a knife fight in
the woods thrilling. In that case you might take your arousal to be anticipation instead of
fear. We can also imagine a happier situation in which the shadowy figure turns out to be
a friend looking to join your hike—you may tell your friend you are excited or happy to
see him. You will describe and think about your stirred-up state differently depending on
which emotional label you take to be appropriate to that particular situation.
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Examples needn’t be as primal as an unexpected encounter in the woods. A
colleague in a department meeting proclaims that you are not competent to perform a
particular task. There is little uncertainty as to the situation itself but it is still not certain
how you ought to describe your state of arousal—your reddening face, your pounding
heart, your shaky hands. Perhaps you are embarrassed, look down at the table, slouch
back in your chair, and quietly steam. However, you may determine that anger is
appropriate in this situation, beat the table with your fist, question your colleague’s
judgment, and work yourself into an even greater state of arousal.
Here is a different sort of case. You have spent several hours in a local
coffeehouse catching up on some reading. Having finished you sit back and find your
thoughts lingering on the work you still need to finish when you get home. Your
stomach is in knots, your hand won’t stop shaking, and the room suddenly feels very hot
for February. You might even be surprised that your work has you this upset—it is really
still manageable and you are certain you can get it done. Still, you can’t help feeling
anxious. Suddenly you realize that your physical symptoms are more likely related to the
five cups of coffee you drank than to your unfinished work. You are able to pull your
thoughts from your work and resolve to take a few deep breaths, eat something, and go
about your day. Recognizing that an emotional label is not appropriate in this case, you
may come to consider and describe your state as over-caffeinated.
A few themes run through each of these cases. In each, various labels could
reasonably be considered appropriate to the situation. Sometimes this is a result of a lack
of information regarding the particulars of the situation. Part of our uncertainty as to
whether fear or joy is a more appropriate label in the ‘man in the woods’ example stems
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from a lack of information—whether the person means you harm or whether the person is
a friend of yours, for instance. In the department meeting example it is not a lack of
information that makes it impossible to identify just one appropriate label; rather, the
possibility of construing the situation in various ways can be seen as playing a role. If
you construe your colleague’s challenge as an offense and as unjust, you are likely to
label your state anger; if you focus on the challenge as lessening your self-worth or
exposing insecurities then you are likely to choose embarrassment as a label for your
arousal. In the department meeting, you may choose anger over embarrassment if you
think that standing up to your colleague may win you the admiration of other department
members or positively influence upcoming decisions regarding a possible promotion. In
addition, a whole new dimension of flexibility for choice of labels opens up when we
consider that you might choose different labels to describe your state at different points in
time during your stirred-up state. You may first be embarrassed by your colleague’s
claim, then furious, then indignant.
The nature of the arousal described above also plays an important role in these
cases. The sorts of symptoms described—heart palpitations, increased muscle tension,
the focusing of attention—are associated with an enormous variety of emotions.
Emotions as different as joy and embarrassment share these same aspects of arousal,
leaving the labeling process much flexibility in determining which emotion results.
In addition, each example involves the elicitation of a state of arousal prior to a
determination of which label is appropriate to that situation. You freeze and focus your
attention on the unidentified person in the woods before you determine whether fear in
particular is appropriate to the situation. In fact, the presence of a state of arousal can be
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seen as providing the occasion for the labeling process to become active in these
examples. Too much caffeine in the coffeehouse example led you, at first, to label your
state as anxiety. Take away the coffee-induced arousal and you take away the occasion
for the labeling of that state.
Another important theme that runs through the examples is the key role of the
labeling process in determining how the emotional episode plays itself out. In the
department meeting it is the choice of labels which determines whether you slouch in
your chair or whether you sit straight up in order to make yourself as tall and threatening
as possible, whether you stare blankly at your shoes or beat your fist on the table, or
whether after the meeting you look for a means of avoiding contact with anyone who
witnessed the episode or look for a means of retribution.
Choice of a particular label does not only affect the sorts of behaviors that are
likely to follow. Choice of a particular label will have an impact on your patterns of
thought or where your attention becomes focused. If you are angry with your colleague
for his callous remark your thoughts will likely settle on other instances in which you (or
even others) may have been offended by this particular colleague. In the future, you may
tend to focus on what you take to be that colleague’s negative traits and downplay their
positive attributes. If you are embarrassed, your thoughts may linger on your own
perceived shortcomings or other embarrassing events you have suffered.
In addition, the outcome of the labeling process can have an impact even on the
state of arousal itself. Coming to label your state in the coffeehouse over-caffeination
had an effect on that state of arousal itself. The realization that an emotional label was
not appropriate was itself a relief and led to an ability to more easily gain control over the
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state of arousal. Subtle differences between labels might even have different effects on
the arousal. You might suspect that labeling your arousal as panic would feed back on
your stirred-up state and encourage a higher degree or a more sustained period of arousal.
Choice of the milder concern may result in a less sustained or lower degree of arousal.
The Antecedents of Arousal
In each of the above examples it is made explicit that the state of arousal is induced prior
to a judgment of what label is appropriate to describe that state. Arousal is already
present when you determine that you are in danger and fear is appropriate, or when you
judge that your response to the sudden appearance of a friend must be joy. Your arousal
at the department meeting is prior to a judgment either that you have been wronged and
are angry or that an insecurity or shortcoming has been exposed and are embarrassed.
But could this be the case? You might object that it is your anger, the recognition
that you have been wronged, that causes your state of arousal (Lyons, 1980). If you do
not first judge that you have been wronged, then how will any arousal result? Common
sense appears to support your objection—your face turns red because you are angry, your
heart rate quickens because you are afraid. Though perhaps counterintuitive, there is a
long history to the notion that a state of arousal can indeed precede an emotion proper. In
fact, the idea of a state of arousal preceding emotion was the foundation of the first
modern theory of the emotions as developed independently by William James and by
Danish physiologist C.G. Lange.
James tells us that emotional responses “shade imperceptibly” into the instinctive
reactions where instinctive reactions are understood as “produc[ing] certain ends, without
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foresight of the ends, and without previous education in the performance” (1890, 383,
italics in original). Seeing a white oval object on the ground, the hen cannot leave it but
must keep it until it hatches and a new and different batch of instinctive reactions are
activated. In much the same way, the human who ventures too close to a precipice or
comes across a snake will undergo “most particular mental and bodily reactions, in
advance of, and often in direct opposition to, the verdict of our deliberate reason
concerning them” (1884, 190). Even if upon reflection you determine that you are in no
real danger from the precipice or the snake, the state of arousal will be initiated
nonetheless. We discussed in Chapter One the case of young William James coming
across a bucket of horse blood as a child. James fainted as he stirred the blood with a
stick even though he did not think it was disgusting and had never heard of the sight of
blood causing faintness. The mere presence of the crimson fluid was enough to cause the
fainting response.
James’s contention that a state of arousal could be initiated before a particular
judgment concerning one’s situation gained support from the work of psychologists and
neuroscientists in the later twentieth century. Psychologist R.B. Zajonc (1980, 1984,
1994) has argued that no judgment need be made for an affective response to be
triggered. Taste aversion can be established even when the animal is unable to recognize
any connection between the food eaten and the nausea that ensued after ingestion—the
nausea having been induced only after the animal is placed under anesthesia (Zajonc,
1984). When the food is later offered and rejected no cognitive appraisal could have
taken place because the animal has no awareness of a connection between the food and
the occurrence of nausea. Similarly, preferences can be established in human subjects for
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neutral stimuli such as tones and polygons even when the subjects are unable to recognize
these stimuli (Zajonc, 1984). Because subjects are unable to recognize the stimuli but
still exhibit affective responses towards the stimuli, it must be that the affective response
occurs even in the absence of cognitive input.
Zajonc also cites evidence from the neurosciences that suggests that emotional
responses might be generated from “a purely sensory input” (Zajonc, 263, italics in
original). Nauta and Haymaker (1969) found a direct pathway from the retina to the
hypothalamus in a large number of species. As a key structure in the arousal and
expression of emotion, “it is possible that rapidly changing light gradients, such as those
that arise with looming objects, could generate fear reactions directly…[r]equired only is
a specific form of activity at the retina” (Zajonc, 1984, 263). It appears that no mediation
by higher cognitive processes would be required. The existence of direct pathways from
sensory structures to structures vital to the emotions has been further supported in more
recent neuroscience as well. Joseph LeDoux (1996) has identified a direct pathway from
the sensory thalamus to the amygdala. The amygdala, in turn, outputs to centers
controlling elements of emotional responses such as freezing, blood pressure changes,
release of stress hormones, and the startle reflex.
Philosophers were not quick to pick up on the Jamesian idea of bodily reactions as
preceding the “verdicts of deliberate reason”. Many philosophers have focused their
research on the more cognitively complex emotions such as pride or guilt in which the
“verdicts of deliberate reason” are of primary interest (Solomon, 1976; Gordon, 1987).
These same philosophers tend to think that the bodily reactions themselves may be not at
all important in understanding these very cognitive emotions. Psychologists, on the other
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hand, have taken the more “primitive” emotions (fear of a bear or surprise at a novel
image, for example) as paradigms for their research concerning the emotions.
Philosopher Jenefer Robinson (1995) has attempted to draw the attention of philosophers
toward this more “primitive” end of the emotion spectrum. In this regard, Robinson has
suggested a more extreme view than that of many psychologists themselves by
recommending that the startle response be taken as a model for emotional responses in
general.
The startle response that interests Robinson is the sort of response that typically
occurs in response to a sudden loud sound. It is a very rapid response—too fast to be
successfully imitated—and usually lasts less than half a second. The response generally
involves a characteristic facial expression including an eye blink and widening of the
mouth. Among the muscle contractions that occur are a pulling of the head forward and
the shoulders up and forward, a bending of the knees and elbows, and a flexing of the
fingers. There is an immediate galvanic skin response, an increase in blood pressure, and
breathing is at first checked and then accelerated. This entire sequence is initiated too
quickly for any cognitive activity to take place at all (Robinson, 1995). Compare the
symptoms associated with the startle response with the symptoms involved in the
examples described above. Seeing the unidentified figure in the woods resulted in many
of the same physical symptoms—similar changes in breathing patterns, changes in heart
rate and muscle tension, and a focusing of the attention underlie both cases.
Although Robinson does not explicitly discuss the labeling process as such, she
does nicely describe what I take to be some of the fundamental underlying principles of
the labeling process:
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“Interestingly, I may only begin to realize what conception I have of a situation if
my body forces me to pay attention to it. I often respond emotionally to some
event without realizing why; my body registers the event as significant to me, but
I have only inchoate thoughts about it and have not made any conscious
judgments about it. In such cases, I can and often do try to articulate what my
thoughts about the situation are in order to explain and understand my emotional
reaction” (Robinson, 1995).
On seeing the figure in the woods, a series of physiological changes is initiated even
though no specific cognitive appraisal has been made about your situation. In fact, you
may even think that if you had not at first frozen, you may have given this person little
notice—it is only because of your physiological response that you are now focused on
this figure further down the path. Robinson’s observation that you will likely attempt to
articulate thoughts about the situation in order to explain your reaction mirrors the notion
of an evaluative need as described by Stanley Schachter—a need to make sense of one’s
stirred-up state by giving that state a label such as joy, or fear, or even a non-emotional
label such hunger or over-caffeination (1959, 1962, 1971). Schachter (1959)
demonstrated the functioning of these needs by showing that subjects placed in stressful
but ambiguous situations tended to want to be with others in a similar plight in order to
achieve some consensus on how their stirred-up state ought to be understood. The
physiological response and the evaluative needs that result constitute the occasion and
impetus for the labeling process to be initiated.
I am not alone, therefore, in thinking that the physiological arousal associated
with the emotions can be produced without any prior cognition or judgment that could be
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causing that state of arousal. More, however, needs to be said. Consider the Jamesian
theory described above. James claims that emotional responses can be considered to be
extensions of instinctive responses. Just the very perception of the white oval object on
the ground causes a set of responses to occur in the hen: sitting on the white oval object,
protecting it from predators, and the like. In some cases of human emotions this story
does not seem unreasonable. Perhaps we humans are “hard-wired” in such a way that the
perception of a snake-like object directly induces a particular set of physiological
changes. The perception of those changes we might call “fear”.
Telling this story, however, becomes more difficult in less rudimentary cases. In
the above example of the conflict at the department meeting, it is unclear precisely what
perception led to your state of physiological arousal. There is nothing like the “white
oval object on the ground” or “snake-like object” the perception of which might induce
those changes. James writes “In my nomenclature it is the total situation which is the
‘object’ on which the reaction of the subject is made” (1884b). It is unclear if this is
helpful because it appears to imply that the response depends on a judgment concerning
the nature of the situation—just the thing we have been at pains to avoid.
The same issue must be addressed regarding Robinson’s startle reflex model of
emotion if we hope to extend that model to more cognitively complex emotional states.
In the case of the actual startle response we know that we can induce physiological
change with no need for prior cognition. The perception of a gunshot is sure to produce a
startle response but precisely what initiates your state of arousal in the example of the
department meeting? We cannot answer “You recognize that you have been wronged” or
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“You determine that a personal insecurity has been revealed” as these answers would
presuppose a judgment initiating the arousal.
The Antecedents of Arousal and Higher Cognitive Emotions
We have seen that states of arousal can be triggered even in the absence of any prior
cognitive appraisal in cases such as recoiling at a snake-like object or freezing upon
hearing a sudden loud sound. We can say that in these cases it is the triggering of that
state of physiological arousal which begins the emotion process. The presence of a state
of arousal becomes the occasion for the individual to label this state and we then have a
full-fledged emotional episode—a state of arousal and a process of labeling. However,
we must still explain how the emotion process is initiated in cases involving more
cognitively complex emotions such as your anger or embarrassment in the department
meeting. In the department meeting example there is no snake-like object, sudden sound,
or other stimulus that we could straightforwardly point to as serving to trigger a reflexlike physiological response.
One tempting solution to the problem of what triggers the emotion process in the
case of cognitively complex emotions would be that the emotion process begins when
you come to recognize that, for instance, you have been wronged (anger) or a personal
insecurity has been revealed (embarrassment). This view, however, would be
problematic for at least two reasons. First, the fact that an emotion is cognitively
complex does not mean that a cognitive appraisal is necessary to initiate the emotion
process. As I pull into my driveway, I may be startled by the sight of a large orange
notice taped to my front door. This state of arousal, perhaps requiring no cognitive
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appraisal at all, comes to underlie a cognitively complex emotion once I have given this
state of affairs a moment’s thought—fear that my house has been condemned. Although
the resulting emotion is cognitively complex, the emotion process was initiated through a
state of arousal which was triggered prior to a cognitive appraisal. Jenefer Robinson
(2005) has argued that cognitively complex emotions can have their origins in “noncognitive appraisals” in response to music. Cognitively complex emotions can also begin
with a state of arousal from some other source—arousal from a previous emotional
episode which has not yet subsided or drug-induced arousal, for instance.
Second, even in cases where it appears that a cognitive appraisal has marked the
beginning of an emotional episode, it also appears that this has not been the result of any
emotion-specific cognition such as ‘I have been wronged’ (anger) or ‘a personal
insecurity has been revealed’ (embarrassment). A vague cognition such as ‘this is
unusual’ may be sufficient to trigger a state of physiological arousal and thus begin the
emotion process. This idea will be developed in this section.
On a Schachterian view, a state of arousal underlying an emotion may be induced
through many different means—the automatic, reflex-like responses we discussed in the
previous section, emotion-specific cognitions such as ‘I have been wronged’, nonemotion-specific cognitions such as ‘this is unusual’, arousal induced through artificial
means such as caffeine, or arousal transferred from another source such as another
emotional episode, exercise, or listening to music. In this section I will consider the work
of appraisal theorists who have attempted to explain precisely what causes emotional
episodes. Although I find much of this work problematic, I also find that important
themes emerge. I believe that emotional episodes are rarely triggered through emotion-
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specific judgments such as ‘I have been offended’ (anger). Instead, I find it more
plausible that emotional episodes generally begin either with no cognitive appraisal (as
we discussed in the previous section) or with cognitions like ‘this is unusual’ which are
not specific to any one emotion.
Research concerning emotional appraisal conducted by psychologists is not so
tidy. The projects often go like this: a set of appraisal dimensions is proposed, defining
an appraisal space. Subjects are given a list of emotion terms and asked to rate each on
the basis of the presence or absence of each appraisal dimension. Alternatively, the
subjects may be asked to imagine or recall emotional situations and judge each according
to the presence or absence of each appraisal dimension (Scherer, 1988). Each method
relies on self-report for its data. Klaus Scherer’s proposed appraisal space is defined by
dimensions such as ‘Suddenness’, ‘Predictability’, ‘Intrinsic Pleasantness’, ‘Concern
Relevance’, and ‘Control’—sixteen dimensions in all. Fear, for instance, involves a high
degree of ‘Suddenness’, a low degree of ‘Predictability’, a low degree of ‘Intrinsic
Pleasantness’, a ‘Concern Relevance’ involving “the body”, and the degree of ‘Control’
can vary (Scherer, 1988). Phoebe Ellsworth has proposed an appraisal space based on
dimensions of ‘Novelty’, ‘Valence’, ‘Certainty’, ‘Obstacles’, ‘Agency’, and ‘Norm/SelfConcept Compatibility’ (Ellsworth, 1994).
There are some problems here. Given an emotion term, the subjects appear to be
doing little more than relying on their folk psychological notions of these emotion terms
in determining how each appraisal dimension is weighted. Scherer, one of the best
known of the appraisal researchers, is adamant that appraisal researchers mean to be
investigating the “actual” features of situations that initiate emotional responses and not
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just what subjects take to be the relevant features (1988). It is not clear how variations
such as asking subjects to imagine or recall emotional situations might avoid this
problem. One might say that appraisal theorists have identified not the features of
situations that trigger emotional responses, but rather have identified themes that run
through our framework of emotion labels.
Another difficulty is that this approach to identifying eliciting conditions for
emotional states presupposes that judgments precede the emotional response. Indeed,
Scherer’s system relies on sixteen individual judgments that may be required for the
triggering of an emotional reaction. We have seen above that at least some emotional
responses can occur in the absence of any such judgments—much less sixteen. Some
appraisal theorists (Leventhal and Scherer, 1987) have proposed that appraisal must be
addressed at multiple levels of processing: at the sensorimotor level, the schematic level,
and the conceptual level. Thus, a response triggered by the sound of a gunshot may
require a different analysis from a response triggered by thoughts concerning your
upcoming tenure review.
What appear to be higher and lower-level appraisal dimensions are often jumbled
together in the appraisal spaces proposed by many theorists. The ‘Suddenness’
dimension of a given emotional situation might be determined by an individual without
the need for anything we might call cognitive processing1. On the other hand, consider
dimensions such as Scherer’s ‘Cause: Agent’ or ‘Internal Compatibility Standards’.
Determining the agent responsible for the emotional situation or whether the situation is
1
Precisely what constitutes “cognitive processing” has been the subject of some intense debate among
emotion theorists (see Zajonc 1980, 1984; and Lazarus 1984). Leventhal and Scherer (1987) have argued
that the debate is largely over the meaning of ‘cognitive’ and have proposed that we might avoid quibbling
by distinguishing among the various levels of processing. They suggest ‘cognitive’ ought to refer to
processes necessarily involving the cortex.
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in accordance with one’s self-concept would seem to require a much higher degree of
processing.
Many appraisal theorists have included categories such as ‘Change’, ‘Novelty’,
‘Unexpectedness’ or ‘Strangeness’ as dimensions of their proposed appraisal spaces
(Frijda 1986; Scherer 1988; Ortony, Clore, and Collins 1988, Ellsworth 1994). That
‘Change’ has become a common theme in appraisal theory has not gone unnoticed by the
appraisal theorists themselves:
“[with the exception of moods]…emotions occur as a response to a change in the
stimulation impinging on the organism, either via the occurrence of an external
stimulus event or an internal change such as the emergence of a particular idea or
the recall of a past event from memory” (Scherer, 1988, 93)
“A change in one’s environment merits attention and, I would argue, gets
attention, universally. Such a change is a major entry point, arguably the major
entry point, to the world of emotions” (Ellsworth, 1994, 151, emphasis in
original)
Scherer’s observation that emotions occur as a response to a change in the stimulation
impinging on an organism is not trivial. Indeed, this point seems to have been missed by
many emotion theorists.
In Scherer’s observation that emotions occur as a response to a change in the
stimulation impinging on an organism we find an important reason that the features of a
situation underdetermine an individual’s particular emotional response. Seeing the
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stranger in the woods out of the corner of your eye was sure to catch your attention in the
above example. However, if this same incident were repeated regularly during your trip
the response would be lost—after a time the glimpse of a stranger in the woods would be
routine. The withdrawal response of the nematode worm, with just 302 neurons, will
vanish after being repeatedly induced. Interestingly, the response returns immediately if
the worm is moved to a plate containing a different chemical environment (Rankin,
2000). The response is not attached to particular features of the environment. The
stimulation impinging on the organism must constitute a change if it is to initiate a
response in that organism.
Spinoza incorporated this phenomenon into his very definition of ‘joy’: “Joy is a
man’s passage from a lesser to a greater perfection” (E III D2, II191, 188). Just believing
that one possesses a high degree of perfection will not necessarily result in joy. The
element of change, of a “passage” to a higher perfection, is necessary. A sample of major
lottery winners were found to be less happy and took significantly less pleasure in
mundane events than control subjects (Brickman, Coates, Janoff-Bulman, 1978). The
peak experience of winning the lottery raises the standard of “a passage to a greater
perfection” to a point where joy does not occur in response to ordinary pleasures.
A different but related lesson is to be taken from Ellsworth’s observation that “a
change in one’s environment merits attention and, I would argue, gets attention,
universally” (1994). Psychologist Jerome Kagan (2002) has collected evidence
demonstrating sensitivity to change and novelty in humans and in other animals. The
simplest novel stimulus can produce surprising changes in the neurons activated. A novel
sound initiates production of a protein called c-fos in the cochlear nucleus of rats
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(Kandiel, Chen, and Hillman, 1999). The tone has no significance or valence in and of
itself—it is the novelty of the stimulus that produces the effects. Indeed, we often find
particular brain responses being initiated in response to novel events regardless whether
the events are of a negative valence or of a positive valence. An increase of
corticotropin-releasing hormone within the central nucleus of the amygdala of rats is
known to occur in response to stress. However, it has been found that this increase is as
large in response to rats being unexpectedly fed (a positively valenced event) as when
they are unexpectedly restrained (a negatively valenced event) (Merali et al., 1998).
Kagan (2002) finds that human sensitivity to change is mediated by many parts of
the brain—the frontal, parietal, and temporal areas, but especially the medial temporal
area and entorhinal cortices, hippocampus, and amygdala. Perhaps significantly, there is
a great deal of overlap between this list of key brain regions involved in sensitivity to
change and lists of those brain areas taken to play a major role in emotion responses. In
fact, Kagan has identified evidence that has been misinterpreted as a result of assuming
that activity in the amygdala can be identified with a state of anxiety or fear (Paradiso, et
al. 1999). If Kagan is correct, this would appear to be a victory of sorts for Schachter
(1971), who warned the Cannon-inspired centralists forty years ago of the problems with
identifying particular emotions with the activation of particular brain structures. The
study in question is as follows: Adults lying in a PET scanner were shown a series of
pictures, first pictures neutral in content (cups, for example), second pictures with
pleasant content (food), and lastly pictures with unpleasant content (a bloody person, a
dirty toilet). The unpleasant pictures were found to produce the largest increase in
metabolic activity in the amygdala. The investigators concluded that the unpleasant
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pictures produced an aversive emotional state resembling fear, as evidenced by the
activation of the amygdala. However, there is another available interpretation of these
results—the activation of the amygdala did not signal an aversive emotional response to
the unpleasantness of the pictures but rather a response to the unexpected change from
pleasant and neutral pictures to the unpleasant pictures. Indeed, a different study had
subjects view the pictures alternately, as opposed to viewing first the neutral pictures,
then the pleasant pictures, and then the unpleasant pictures (Canli, et al., 2001). This
study found activity in the amygdala to be highest in response to the pleasant pictures.
This result shows that activity in the amygdala certainly cannot be assumed to signal a
specifically aversive emotional state.
Other studies support a view that novelty more reliably results in activation of the
amygdala than specifically positive or negative stimuli. Subjects shown a blank screen
on some trials and pleasant or unpleasant pictures on other trials showed greater response
in the amygdala to the pictures than to the blank screen but equivalent activity in
response to the pleasant and unpleasant images (Taylor, Liberzon, and Koeppe, 2000).
When an unexpected but nonaversive light was presented along with a series of tactile
stimuli, subjects showed increased skin conductance and a larger eye-blink startle—both
responses mediated by the amygdala (Lipp, Siddle, and Dall, 2000).
We worried earlier about how a state of arousal might be induced prior to any
judgment regarding the individual’s situation. How was it that a state of arousal was
immediately initiated when you caught a glimpse of the figure down the path—before
you determined that you were in danger, or before you determined that things had taken a
positive turn in the form of a friend’s sudden appearance? Common sense may say that a
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judgment must come before a state of arousal but the evidence appears to suggest
otherwise. Zajonc has demonstrated that affective responses can occur when there is no
possibility that a judgment could have been made regarding the stimuli that triggered the
response. LeDoux has identified a direct pathway in the brain from sensory structures to
the amygdala, outputs of which control many aspects of emotional responses (freezing,
blood pressure changes, release of stress hormones, and the startle reflex). This pathway
does not require input from the cortex where higher cognitive processes take place.
Kagan has shown the flexibility in the types of stimuli that can result in activation of the
amygdala. Stimuli needn’t be specifically pleasant or unpleasant in order to trigger these
changes. Activation of the amygdala appears to be highly sensitive to change or novelty
itself.
A state of arousal provides the occasion for the labeling process. A focusing of
attention, an increased heart rate, freezing, changes in breathing patterns, or other features
of a state of physiological arousal lead one to conceptualize one’s situation—to label that
state of physiological arousal. The arousal required is not hard to come by. The ringing
of a telephone or a knock at your door is intended, in part, to induce aspects of a state of
arousal. An unexpected knock at your front door will, without fail, pull your attention
from the book you are reading and focus your attention on this change in your situation—
an unidentified person at your front door. In an extreme case you may be genuinely
startled and jump at the knock, momentarily check your breathing, and become aware of
your increased heart rate. In a more moderate case, you may “perk up”, orient towards
the front door, and mentally run through a list of possible unexpected visitors. The
arousal experienced provides an opportunity and an impetus for you to assess your
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situation—a change has occurred and a re-evaluation of your current situation is required.
The arousal primes you for action and primes you to reassess your situation in light of
new circumstances.
Incorporating Affect Programs
I propose that the only thing that can make a particular state anger is that it has been
labeled anger; what makes a particular state disgust is that it has been labeled disgust. In
part, the plausibility of this claim is tied to the degree of differentiation found in the states
of physiological arousal that accompany these emotional states. William James (1884,
1890) expected that each emotion would correspond to a unique pattern of visceral
changes. The perception of that activation, according to James, would be the emotion.
However, critics of James found that the states of arousal accompanying the emotions
were not so varied as James predicted (Cannon, 1927). The visceral changes tended to be
pretty much the same across a wide variety of emotional states and even across nonemotional states such as fever and hypoglycemia. Stanley Schachter (1959, 1962)
introduced the notion of the labeling process partly as a response to these findings—if
emotions are not differentiated at the physiological level, then they must be differentiated
at the cognitive level.
Since the time of James the search for physiological differentiators of the
emotions has been an ongoing project. Most recently the notion of affect programs has
dominated this research. Philosopher Paul Griffiths, a leading proponent for the
importance of affect programs, explains that an affect program is a set of coordinated and
automatic responses that are usually taken to include “(a) expressive facial changes, (b)
musculoskeletal responses such as flinching and orienting, (c) expressive vocal changes,
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(d) endocrine system changes and consequent changes in the level of hormones, and (e)
autonomic nervous system changes” (1997). According to psychologist Paul Ekman
(1994), there are at least four identifiable affect programs—for anger, fear, disgust, and
sadness. An affect program for contempt is more controversial but might also be added
to the list. Surprise and happiness are also a strong candidates. Ekman (1994) expects
that eventually we will identify affect programs for a long list of emotions: amusement,
anger, awe, contempt, contentment, disgust, embarrassment, excitement, fear, guilt,
interest, pride in achievement, relief, satisfaction, sensory pleasure, and shame.
Much of the recent effort to identify particular affect programs has centered
around Ekman’s research on facial expressions. Ekman, along with Wallace V. Friesen,
performed a series of experiments in which subjects were shown photographs of facial
expressions and were asked to check from a list which emotion they saw (Ekman, 1984).
Subjects from five different cultures gave the same interpretation of each face. The same
facial expressions and the same interpretation of those expressions were found even in
visually isolated cultures that could not have learned these expressions from the outside
world. These results were obtained for six different emotions: surprise, fear, anger, joy,
sadness, and disgust.
Griffiths (1997) has argued that our ordinary language category ‘emotion’ must
be rethought in light of the discovery of affect programs. Griffiths claims that we have
identified particular affect programs for happiness, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust, and
perhaps distinct affect programs for surprise and contempt as well. These emotions,
according to Griffiths, should be considered as belonging to their own category separate
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from other emotions. Emotions such as jealousy, frustration, regret, or guilt must be
considered to be some other type of thing—as ‘irruptive motivational states’, for instance.
According to Griffiths it is important to keep these emotions in separate categories
because if we learn something about anger or sadness, we cannot count on this telling us
anything about frustration or guilt.
If there is differentiation in the states of arousal that accompany the emotions, can
it still be that it is the labeling process that makes a state the particular emotion that it is?
Absolutely. I mentioned above that a lack of differentiation helps motivate the
importance of the labeling process—if the arousal is identical across all emotional and
even some non-emotional states, then it must be the labeling process that differentiates
the various emotions. However, this can still be the case even if Griffiths and Ekman are
right that the arousal involved in the emotions is not undifferentiated. Any number of
different labels can still be applied to any particular affect program.
Suppose you are in the grip of a Griffiths-style “anger” affect program. It does
not follow that you are specifically angry. You could certainly be irritated, or furious, or
indignant. In fact, you could be in any number of emotional states that are not even
necessarily closely related to anger—you could be jealous, or disappointed, or angstridden, or embarrassed, or trapped. Indeed, you could be undergoing a “sadness” affect
program instead but still be jealous, disappointed, angst-ridden, embarrassed, or trapped.
Even if the arousal is not undifferentiated, there is still little constraint on what labels
might be used to describe the unfolding of any particular affect program.
One likely response to the claim that the unfolding of one particular affect
program might be compatible with any number of emotions might be: “You are just
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talking about labels. The affect programs are the real emotions.” To the biologist or
psychologist looking for a pattern of autonomic nervous system activation correlated with
anger this sort of argument will have a strong appeal. A pattern of autonomic nervous
system changes is a “real thing” that can be observed in a laboratory—results can be
quantified and replicated. So-called emotions such as pride or gratitude, for which no
affect programs have been identified, must not be “real things”.
In accepting this sort of argument we are failing to appreciate the emotions in
their full complexity. As an account of the emotions, affect programs on their own are
sorely lacking. There are at least two aspects of the emotions that demonstrate both why
the affect programs cannot be considered as a full account of the emotions on their own.
First, the affect programs do not unfold in cognitive vacuums. The very act of labeling a
state of arousal will change that state of arousal itself. Imagine you find yourself in a
state of arousal similar to an anger-type affect program. Will the unfolding of that affect
program be the same if you label that state fury as opposed to irritation? What if you
were to label that state indignation as opposed to embarrassment? My guess is that the
emotional state as a whole would be affected significantly. Fury as opposed to irritation
may result in a more intense state of arousal—perhaps a more defined anger facial
expression, a more pronounced change in hormone levels and in the autonomic nervous
system, and a greater degree of muscle tension. We might also expect this furious state to
be shorter lived than if the milder irritation were chosen. If we are interested in
behavioral tendencies related to the emotions it would make a great difference if a state
were to be labeled indignation as opposed to embarrassment. The indignant individual
might exhibit strong approach behaviors while the embarrassed person might do all she
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can to disappear. Most of us have had the experience of coming to label the unfolding of
what might be an anger affect program as hunger. Realizing that you have missed a
meal, you recognize that your initial response of irritation at being handed a student’s
late paper is not appropriate and that your physiological state is better considered hunger.
This has a most pronounced effect on the state of arousal itself—your angry expression
disappears, your muscles relax, and your attention pulls from the perceived offense of
being handed a late paper and towards the nearest source of food. The
interconnectedness of states of arousal, including any affect programs, and the cognitive
judgments involved in the labeling process make an attempt to identify states of arousal
with the emotions themselves highly artificial.
There is another reason to resist the temptation to identify affect programs with
emotions themselves. Most affect program theorists seem to find support for around six
individual affect programs: anger, fear, joy, sadness, surprise, disgust and perhaps
contempt. This leaves out many of what we generally consider to be real emotional
states: pride, guilt, jealousy, anguish, contentment, dread, embarrassment, envy,
frustration, hope, pity, remorse, hate, love, and any number of others. In this sense, the
number of affect programs is vastly outnumbered by actual emotions. By recognizing
that pride, guilt, jealousy and the rest are labels that can be used to describe and interpret
states of arousal, including activation of any affect programs, we can make sense of this
enormous range of various emotions. Jealousy might be used to describe the unfolding
of an anger affect program when you spy your beloved paying undue attention to another,
or to describe the unfolding of a fear affect program as you imagine your life having lost
your beloved to this new rival, or to describe the unfolding of a sadness affect program as
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you mull over thoughts that your beloved is perhaps not the faithful, loving person that
you once believed them to be. It should further be noted that anger, fear, joy, sadness,
surprise, disgust, and contempt are labels as well that bear no necessary connection to
particular states of physiological arousal—an “anger” affect program could be labeled
fear by the individual undergoing the process; a “fear” affect program could be labeled
anger by the individual undergoing the process. If affect program theorists wish to claim
that the affect programs should be cordoned off from the rest of what we generally
consider emotions, then we must recognize that they have not only left out explanations
for the “more cognitive” emotions, they have also left out explanations for the cognitive
aspects of the “basic” emotions anger, fear, joy, sadness, surprise, disgust, and contempt.
What the affect program theorists have uncovered is not a privileged class of emotions
that are unlike all the rest; rather, they have found differentiation in the states of
physiological arousal that might be labeled by an individual undergoing those states of
arousal.
Indeed, through consideration of pathological cases, we can see that even the
“basic” emotions ought not to be identified with affect programs. Antonio Damasio
relates the case of his Patient C. (Parvisi et al. 2001, Damasio 2003). After suffering a
stroke affecting the brain stem, Patient C. would burst into fits of crying or fits of
laughter for no apparent reason. These fits would last for between half a minute and two
minutes, during which he would try as best he could to gain control of his response.
During the fits, Patient C. would struggle to explain that his laughter or crying was not
meant as such and that he had nothing in mind that could explain his behavior. Is Patient
C. experiencing joy during his laughing fits? Patient C. is experiencing unprovoked fits
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of laughter—not unprovoked episodes of joy. Identifying affect programs with the
emotions may allow us to think that Patient C. is experiencing joy or sadness in his
laughing and crying fits. Patient C. is undergoing a set of automatic and coordinated
physiological changes that appears to include many of the types of changes on Griffiths’
list. Indeed, if you had been told that Patient C. had just won the lottery or lost his
fortune, you may very well mistake his laughing or crying fits for genuine episodes of
ecstasy or anguish. From the perspective of the labeling process we see why Patient C’s
physiological changes cannot themselves be considered to be emotional responses.
Patient C. is experiencing a particular physiological response for which no emotional
label can be deemed appropriate—nothing in Patient C’s thoughts or immediate situation
suggests an emotional label for his state. Since no emotional label can be deemed
appropriate, no emotion results. Patient C. will label his state of arousal but not with joy
or sadness, but rather with a non-emotional term such as laughing fit or crying fit.
It is not surprising that empirical evidence regarding affect programs is not easy
to come by. Generating full-blown emotions in the lab is tremendously difficult while
maintaining reasonable ethical standards. The idea, however, is very appealing and the
effort to identify affect programs goes back at least to Darwin (1872). Griffiths mentions
facial expressions, musculoskeletal responses, expressive vocal changes, endocrine
system changes, and autonomic nervous system changes as elements of the affect
programs. Paul Ekman’s evidence for the existence of pancultural facial expressions
associated with particular emotions is very striking (1984, 1994). Evidence for other
potential elements of affect programs is not so impressive. After facial expressions,
autonomic nervous system changes have received the most attention. While individual
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studies have claimed to find reliable differentiators, reviews of this literature have found
the evidence to be highly ambiguous. Cacioppo et al. (2000) write:
“In sum…even a limited set of discrete emotions such as happy (sic), sad (sic),
fear, anger, and disgust cannot be fully differentiated by visceral activity alone,
but follow-up meta-analyses did suggest that the negative emotions in this
literature are associated with stronger ANS [autonomic nervous system] responses
than are the positive emotions” (184).
Additional reviews (Cacioppo, Klein, Berntson, and Hatfield, 1993; Cacioppo, Berntson,
Klein, and Poehlmann, 1997; Zajonc and McIntosh, 1992) reach similar ambiguous
conclusions: “These reviews reveal that whereas some reliable autonomic differentiation
has been obtained across studies, the results are far from definitive regarding emotionspecific autonomic patterning” (Cacioppo et al., 2000). Patterns of ANS activation have
not fallen neatly in line with the affect programs as described by Griffiths. Other aspects
that Griffiths proposes such as expressive vocal changes and musculoskeletal changes
have received little attention and no strong patterns have emerged in the literature.
Fundamental questions about the affect programs remain unanswered. For
instance: are the individual elements that constitute an affect program centrally controlled
by a single neural mechanism or do the affect programs constitute a more decomposable
system in which the individual elements function to some degree independently of one
another? Much of the evidence for affect programs, especially regarding facial
expressions, comes from inducing emotions in the lab and measuring effects—a very
difficult enterprise. One hope may be that evidence from neuroscience may shed light on
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the control mechanisms that are responsible for any affect programs and may result in an
alternative approach to identifying these systems.
While affect programs are an intuitively appealing idea the lack of clear evidence
for their existence and our lack of understanding as to how they might function should be
a concern. More empirical work and hopefully new experimental techniques will clarify
any role that affect programs play in emotional episodes. Most important, however, is
the fact that affect programs cannot explain the emotions by themselves. While affect
programs are sure to be important to emotion theory, the bare unfolding of an affect
program cannot be said to constitute any emotion at all.
Labeling and Neuroscience
William James expected that no special brain systems would be involved in emotional
episodes (1884a). All that James needed was the sensory areas of the cortex that could
perceive changing states of visceral activation—those perceptions were the emotions
according to James. This elegant picture has turned out to be far too simple. Walter B.
Cannon (1929) showed that the hypothalamus is necessary for emotional responses. J.W.
Papez (1937) identified a system consisting of the hypothalamus, anterior thalamus,
cingulate gyrus, and hippocampus that mediated emotional experience and expression.
P.D. MacLean (1949) built on the notion of the Papez circuit by adding other structures
such as the amygdala, septal nuclei, and the orbito-frontal cortex and christening this set
of structures “the limbic system”.2 Recently, Joseph LeDoux’s study of the amygdala has
2
The limbic system turned out to be very hard to define with any clarity and some structures included in
the limbic system (the hippocampus, for example) turned out to be more important to functions considered
cognitive rather than emotional (LeDoux and Phelps, 2000).
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revealed a “fear circuit” in the brain (1996), and Jaak Panksepp has argued for the
existence of a number of basic emotion systems that constitute “natural kinds” in the
brain (1994).
It is possible to frame these recent findings in the neurosciences as a challenge to
my picture of the role of the labeling process. In the same way that a biologist or
psychologist might be tempted to look at an affect program and identify that coordinated
set of responses with a particular emotion, the neuroscientist might be tempted to look at
a particular brain process and identify that brain process with a particular emotion. If we
succumb to this temptation then we will say that what makes this particular state fear is
the activation of a particular brain process, not that the state has been labeled fear. Just
as we identified conceptual flaws in this approach regarding affect programs, we shall
now consider why we ought not to straightforwardly identify particular emotional states
such as fear with the activation of a particular brain mechanism.
Joseph LeDoux (1996, 2000) has used “fear conditioning” on rat subjects to
demonstrate the central role of the amygdala in emotional responses and to uncover
connections between the amygdala and the cortex and between the amygdala and various
sensory structures of the brain. A neutral tone, to which the rat has already been
habituated, is repeatedly paired with a mild electrical shock delivered through the floor of
the cage. Later, the sound alone is sufficient to bring about what LeDoux calls a
“conditioned fear response” including freezing, ANS and blood pressure changes,
suppressed reactivity to pain, and potentiation of reflexes.
A fascinating picture develops from a series of tracer and lesion studies performed
on rats that have undergone this fear conditioning process. LeDoux has found that it is
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activation of the amygdala that initiates various elements of emotional responses such as
freezing, blood pressure changes, release of stress hormones, and the startle reflex. In
addition LeDoux identifies two distinct brain pathways to the amygdala. One pathway
(the “high road”) passes from the sensory thalamus, through the cortex and then on to the
amygdala. The other pathway (the “low road”) runs directly from the thalamus to the
amygdala. The direct “low road” pathway from the sensory thalamus to the amygdala
makes for very fast transmission and can allow the organism to begin to respond to
potentially significant stimuli even before those stimuli are fully evaluated. The “high
road” pathway through the cortex is slower but is able to take advantage of cortical
processing that allows for more detailed evaluation of stimuli.
During your hike in the woods you notice a curvy, snake-like object on the path
just ahead. The “low road” quickly responds, initiates activity in the amygdala, and a
fear response is initiated. However, after a moment you realize that this is just a vaguely
snake-shaped stick and your response begins to subside. While the “low road” provided
you with a very quick response that may have saved you from danger, the “high road”
has provided you with a slower but more detailed evaluation. The “high road” is then
able to modulate your initial response by overriding the “low road” and initiating a halt in
the state of arousal.
Jaak Panksepp (1994, 2000) has come to support a view that “the basic emotions
are ‘natural kinds’ that have specifiable neural substrates within the mammalian brain”
(2000, 137). By identifying the key brain areas and the key neuromodulators that play a
role in these systems, Panksepp has identified a number of basic emotional systems:
SEEKING, RAGE, FEAR, LUST, CARE, PANIC and PLAY. The RAGE system, for
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example, “is built around excitatory amino acid neurotransmitters such as glutamate, with
several neuropeptide modulators. The amygdala exerts descending inhibitory control
over anger via met-enkephalin circuits and excitatory control via substance P circuits”
(2000, 146).
I have no particular quarrel with LeDoux or Panksepp’s claims to have identified
brain systems that are vital to emotion theory. However, I do question the way they have
presented their claims. Why does LeDoux speak of “fear conditioning” and describe his
“low road”/”high road”/amygdala system as a “fear reaction system” (1996, 165)? I
doubt that what LeDoux has in mind is that the rat has determined that the appropriate
label to describe its own state of arousal is fear. Rather, I suspect that LeDoux himself
has determined that the label fear seems to an appropriate way to describe the rat’s state.
We may wonder whether fear is a state we ought to attribute to rats at all. Perhaps we
should only attribute states such as aroused to rats. Or, similarly, perhaps we should
stick to descriptions of the rat’s behaviors and quantifiable physiological changes. If we
are happy to attribute labels such as fear to rats, are we sure that fear is the appropriate
label in this case? Given the rat’s situation I think that anger or indignation could be
good alternatives. The rat has already experienced the shock several times, perhaps no
longer sees the shock as a danger, and may now be irritated or experiencing
hopelessness.
Naming this brain system the “fear response system” can be misleading. One
very likely misunderstanding would be that we can now claim to have identified a neural
basis for fear and for that reason fear in particular can be granted a privileged status as a
“real” or “basic” or “well-founded” emotion. I suspect that the arousal resulting from the
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activation of this system might be labeled in an enormous variety of ways, and thus
provides the same “neural basis” for all of those emotions equally—not just fear in
particular.
Panksepp invites similar misunderstanding by naming brain systems RAGE,
FEAR, and PANIC, for instance. Activation of the RAGE system might underlie any
number of different emotions and we must be careful to not confuse the RAGE system
with any particular emotion. Evidence for the RAGE system is not evidence that rage as
an emotion is in any sense more “basic” or “real” than any other emotion.
One good step would be for neuroscientists to stop using emotional labels as the
names for systems in the brain. Ignoring their various shortcomings, “the limbic system”
and “the Papez circuit” refer to brain systems key to the emotions without inviting
confusion between actual emotions and the functioning of these brain systems. There is
also a marketing issue here—uncovering a neural basis for fear is sure to attract more
attention than the discovery of “the LeDoux circuit.” Perhaps any losses can be recouped
by pointing out that activation of “the LeDoux circuit” may play a role not just in fear but
also in any number of other emotions—as many emotions as there are different ways to
label the resulting arousal. In any case, in order to not encourage the widespread error of
confusing emotions with brain systems we ought to keep clear the distinction between
those brain systems and the emotions that they underlie.
Several arguments I used earlier to explain why we ought not identify emotions
with affect programs also apply to attempts to identify emotions with the activation of
particular brain systems. The activation of a particular brain system, such as LeDoux’s
“fear” circuit, does not determine a particular label for that state. Any number of labels
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can still be applied to the arousal resulting from the activation of that brain system. In
addition, there is an enormous variety of emotion labels—each with, for instance, its own
criteria for appropriateness, its own set of action tendencies, and its own effects on the
modulating of states of arousal. The number of emotional labels is by no means matched
by an equal number of brain systems of the sort described by LeDoux and Panksepp.
These brain systems cannot be identified with the emotions because the number of
proposed brain systems vastly underdetermines the number of emotions.
The lesson of Patient C. and his laughing and crying fits applies to attempts to
identify activation of brain systems with emotions just as well as it applies to attempts to
identify affect programs with emotions. I argued above that the unfolding of a Griffithsstyle joy or sadness affect program is not sufficient for joy or sadness. Patient C’s
syndrome, the result of a stroke, is a neurological disorder. His fits are a result of
inappropriate activation of brain systems controlling the behaviors associated with his
laughing and crying fits (Parvisi et al., 2000). During this activation Patient C.
experiences uncontrollable fits of laughter or crying even as he attempts to choke out to
those around him that there is nothing he is laughing or crying about. Patient C’s
laughing fits cannot be considered to be episodes of joy. Activation of these brain
systems, although clearly related to the emotions, cannot be considered sufficient for
actual emotions.
Recent evidence from the neurosciences supports the notion that the labeling
process modulates the activation of “emotional” brain systems themselves by describing
mechanisms through which the labeling process may work. The “high road” brain
pathway described by LeDoux (1996) runs through the cortex on its way to the amygdala.
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This detour through the cortex, according to LeDoux, allows for more detailed evaluation
of stimuli than is possible for the “low road” which runs directly to the amygdala and
cannot take advantage of cortical processing. The “high road” pathway modulates or
even overrides activation of the “low road” pathway. Thus, higher cognitive processes
such as the labeling process are able to directly modulate the activity of brain systems
that in turn control states of arousal. Panksepp (2000) appears to concur:
“Clearly, what the cortex allows is ever more sophisticated ways for organisms to
regulate their emotions—to extend and shorten emotional episodes in time, to
focus their emotional resources via learning, and in humans to parse basic
emotional concepts in increasingly sophisticated ways” (152).
Thus, we not only see how the labeling process functions in episodes of emotion, we also
have what appears to be a plausible neural mechanism to explain how it might operate.
Since LeDoux and Panksepp can be taken to support the idea of the labeling
process as I have presented it, it may be considered surprising that neither is particularly
careful in differentiating between brain systems and actual emotions—fear, anger,
jealousy, pride, and the like. It is important to keep these distinct not just to remind us of
the role played by the labeling process in episodes of emotion, but also to avoid basing
research on a foundation of conceptual errors. Kagan showed how identifying activity in
the amygdala with fear led researchers to claim that the unpleasantness of a series of
pictures caused activation in the amygdala when later research found that it was the
surprise of seeing the unpleasant pictures, not the unpleasantness itself, that resulted in
the activation. Fear, joy, anger, embarrassment, indignation, guilt, pride, and the rest are
self-attributions or labels—not patterns of physiological change, not the activation of
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brain systems—and the more we remind ourselves of this fact the less confused will be
our thinking concerning the emotions.
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4.
Judgment Theories
Stanley Schachter (1971) claimed that the 1962 Schachter and Singer experiment was
largely intended as a call for researchers to take seriously the cognitive aspects of the
emotions. Emotion theorists had long been focused on identifying either emotionspecific states of physiological arousal or emotion-specific activity in the brain.
According to Schachter, no satisfactory account of the emotions could be created without
an account of the cognitive aspects of the emotions and an account of how cognitive
processes interact with physiological processes within an emotional episode.
By the mid-1970s it started to appear that perhaps Schachter’s call to focus on the
cognitive aspects of the emotions had been taken too far. Robert Solomon (1976) began
to argue that emotions ought to be identified with particular cognitive judgments and that
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“the chemistry of the body and the sensations caused by that chemistry have in
themselves nothing to do with the emotions” (1976, 95).
Solomon’s theory of the emotions became recognized as the paradigm judgment
theory of the emotions. In identifying the emotions with particular cognitive judgments,
however, Solomon committed the same error that the Jamesian peripheralists and the
Cannon-inspired centralists had committed before him. Identifying the emotion with just
one aspect of the emotion process causes us to lose sight of other essential aspects of the
emotion process and it causes us to lose sight of the complex interactions that take place
among these various aspects.
While many distinct types of judgment theory have been developed, each takes
particular complexes of propositional attitudes such as beliefs, desires, or wishes to form
the essential core of any emotion. In this chapter I will explore the inadequacies of
judgment theories while also pointing out the valuable insights of judgment theories
which can be integrated into a Schachterian account of the emotions. I will also consider
some particular judgment theories and determine whether or not these particular
judgment theories may be able to avoid the criticisms leveled at judgment theory in
general.
While many philosophers have become critical of judgment theories in recent
years (Griffiths, 1997; DeLancey, 2002; Prinz, 2004), I will focus on the criticisms of
judgment theory which are found in the work of Jenefer Robinson (1995). I will begin by
reviewing several of Robinson’s complaints regarding judgment theories of the emotions.
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Robinson on Judgment Theories
Jenefer Robinson (1995) has criticized judgment theorists for neglecting the “primitive”
end of the emotion spectrum. In focusing on sophisticated emotions such as ‘awe of a
golden eagle’, ‘an interest in symbolic logic’, and ‘embarrassment about the publicity for
one’s wedding’, judgment theorists have underestimated the importance of noncognitive
aspects of the emotions. Robinson suggests what she believes many philosophers would
find laughable—that the startle response ought to serve as a model for understanding the
emotions in general. Robinson makes this case by pointing out similarities between the
startle response and other responses on the emotion spectrum. For instance, like other
emotional responses, the startle response can be triggered even in the absence of any
cognitive input, a fact missed by judgment theorists focused only on the most cognitively
complex emotions.
In addition to pointing out the similarities between the startle response and other
emotion responses, Robinson criticizes judgment theorists for being unable to account for
three specific features of the emotions that can be accounted for under her model. Each
point itself constitutes an important criticism of judgment theory. Robinson’s first
criticism is that her theory clearly explains the biological purposes of emotions, while
judgment theories fail to do so. The bodily responses involved in the emotions call
attention to aspects of an individual’s situation which may be significant to that
individual’s goals and desires. In some cases, a quick action is required and a fast and
automatic bodily response can be essential to the survival of the organism. Joseph
LeDoux (1996) describes a case in which an individual walking along a path freezes upon
hearing an unusual sound. The sound may turn out to be just a dry twig cracking
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underfoot. However, if the hiker finds that the sound was in fact the rattling of a
rattlesnake, then the hiker is ahead of the game. A state of readiness has already been
triggered in the form of changes in arousal such as a focusing of attention, the release of
stress hormones, and the increased muscle tension that prepares the individual to fight or
to run away as necessary. If an actual cognitive recognition of danger was needed to
initiate the emotional response, the hiker would have lost valuable time. Indeed, if not
for the automatic initial response to the unusual sound, it is likely that the hiker would not
have noticed the potential danger at all. Ignoring the ways in which states of arousal can
be induced prior to any cognitive judgment leads us to miss this adaptive aspect of
emotion processes.
These automatic bodily responses can occur without the need for cognitive input
even when it appears that much cognitive effort would be required to provoke such a
response. Robinson points out that much cognitive work regarding politics and morality
would be required to reach the conclusion that indignation would be a proper response to
U.S. policy regarding Haitian refugees. However, once that conclusion had been
reached, and the underlying beliefs are deeply entrenched, a fast and automatic response
may result any time that she hears of the plight of Haitian refugees. Thus, even in cases
where it appears much cognitive activity must precede a response, the response can
become fast and automatic if that response has already become entrenched.
Robinson’s second criticism of judgments theories is that they fail to explain
emotional inertia—the way in which a change in belief does not always bring about what
would appear to be the corresponding change in emotional state. Robinson describes an
individual who comes to recognize that spiders really are harmless. Nevertheless, when
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the individual sees a spider, she still responds in an emotional way. This is a mysterious
situation for the judgment theorist—this individual appears to believe both that the spider
is harmless and that the spider constitutes a danger. In this sort of case, according to
Robinson, a bodily response is triggered even though the response is in conflict with the
individual’s dispassionate judgment. Robinson’s view allows her to explain the case by
saying that the woman recognizes that the spider is not dangerous, yet still experiences a
physiological response when she sees a spider.
Emotional inertia can be seen at work in a different sort of case as well. Suppose
that I am angry at John for taking my car, but then discover that my car had merely been
moved into the garage. Discovering that my car has not been taken undercuts the
evaluative judgment that I had been wronged by John’s taking my car. However, this
emotional episode will likely not be simply terminated as the judgment theory would
predict. Although the cognition currently supporting my emotional state has been
eliminated, my state of physiological arousal persists. The presence of this state of
physiological arousal will lead me to re-evaluate my emotional state. A new selfattribution will be required since I can no longer consider myself angry at John for
stealing my car. An extremely rational individual may recognize the she is merely
“coming down” from an emotional episode that turned out to be unfounded. A more
likely possibility is that I will come to label my state using another emotional term or
choose a new object for my emotional state. For instance, I may cease to be angry at
John for stealing my car and instead be angry at John for not telling me that he moved my
car into the garage. Alternatively, I may consider myself frustrated at being so
overwhelmed that I cannot even keep track of my own car. I may even swing drastically
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to a positively valenced state—I am ecstatic that my car was not taken after all! While
the views of the emotions advocated by Robinson (1995) or by Schachter and Singer
(1962) can explain the inertia of these emotional states, there is no reason to be found in
the accounts of judgment theorists for why this type of emotional inertia should occur.
Robinson’s third criticism of judgment theories is that judgment theories cannot
help us understand some particular sorts of emotional irrationality. One sort of
irrationality occurs in the case of the person who finds spiders to be terrifying but knows
that they are, in fact, harmless. A second type of irrationality occurs when an emotional
response appears to be inconsistent with one’s epistemic state. For instance, Robinson
points out that I can be ‘angry that Mary has flouted my wishes’ even though I am
uncertain as to whether Mary has, in fact, done so. Although I do not know whether
Mary has flouted my wishes, I still respond emotionally to Mary or to the thought of
Mary as if I did know that she had actually flouted my wishes. In a third sort of
irrationality, an emotional response may be inappropriate in its intensity. If Mary has
flouted my wishes regarding some issue that I recognize to be rather insignificant, I may
nevertheless respond with great intensity. My bodily response registers the event as very
significant, while I dispassionately recognize that the event is of only minor significance.
These various types of emotional irrationality can be explained in terms of Robinson’s
view and they can be explained in terms of Schachter’s view but they cannot be
explained in terms of the views of judgment theorists.
Further Criticisms of Judgment Theory
While Robinson’s specific criticisms of judgment theory are themselves compelling,
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other problems with judgment theories emerge when we follows Robinson's advice to
turn our attention towards the “primitive” end of the emotion spectrum and the
physiological responses that are involved in emotional responses.
According to the judgment theorist, it is a particular judgment which initiates an
emotional response. Judgment theorist Robert Solomon (1976) claims that fear is the
recognition of a danger. Judgment theorist Robert Gordon (1987) claims that ‘fear-thatp’ is caused by having a desire that not-p combined with uncertainty as to whether p is or
is not (or will or will not) be the case. In general, the judgment theorist will claim that an
emotional response is initiated because of the presence of a particular propositional
attitude or set of propositional attitudes. Robinson recognizes that emotional responses
can be triggered even in the absence of any such cognitions. Neuroscientists have
convincingly shown that an affective response can be triggered directly by activity at
sensory structures. R.B. Zajonc (1980, 1984) has shown that particular patterns of
activity at the retina can cause affective responses directly without any need for cognitive
mediation. Similarly, Joseph LeDoux (1996) has demonstrated a pathway from the
sensory thalamus to the amygdala that can likewise trigger physiological changes
characteristic of emotional responses without the need for any cognitive input. Thus, the
judgment theorist cannot account for the way in which at least some emotional episodes
are initiated—at least some emotional episodes begin with an automatic appraisal that
involves no cognitive judgment at all.
If my arguments in the previous chapter are correct, things look especially bad for
the judgment theorist. I argued that affective responses which initiate emotional episodes
are rarely triggered by an explicit, emotion-specific judgment such as ‘I believe that I am
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in danger’—instead, affective responses are generally triggered either by entirely noncognitive processes or by inchoate judgments which are not specific to any particular
emotion ('this is unexpected', for instance). If this is the case, then judgment theorists
will be wrong about what causes emotional episodes in the vast majority of cases.
In ignoring the physiological aspects of the emotions, the judgment theorist fails
to account for what initially triggers emotional episodes. In addition, the judgment
theorist loses sight of the complex interactions between states of physiological arousal
and those cognitive judgments which the judgment theorist takes to be constitutive of the
emotion. Particular states of physiological arousal themselves may be pleasant or
unpleasant. Not only do these valenced states of arousal bring a particular quality of feel
to an emotional state, the valence of these states also influences the cognitive judgments
that are likely to made throughout the emotional episode.
In responding to the Maslach (1979) and Marshall and Zimbardo (1979)
replications of the 1962 experiment, Schachter and Singer (1979) recognize that states of
physiological arousal can themselves be valenced and thus influence self-attributions that
follow. For instance, in the Marshall and Zimbardo replication (1979), some subjects
were injected with a dose of epinephrine high enough to cause subjects to feel
significantly uncomfortable. It is unsurprising that these individuals attributed to
themselves negatively valenced affective states. In ignoring the role of physiological
arousal in the emotion process, the judgment theorist misses that a valenced state of
arousal will play an important role in determining the very judgments the judgment
theorist identifies as the emotion. An individual undergoing a negatively valenced state
of arousal will be led to make negatively valenced evaluative judgments. For instance,
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the individual in a negatively valenced state of arousal will be more likely to arrive at the
judgment ‘I have been wronged’ than the judgment ‘things are good’.
States of arousal need not be as strongly valenced as a shockingly high dose of
epinephrine to impact emotional judgments. While it is not surprising that this significant
dose of epinephrine will affect these judgments, more subtle distinctions between states
of arousal may also have an influence. We saw above that the Jamesian peripheralists
were disappointed to find surprisingly little differentiation in states of arousal
accompanying emotional episodes. But, even minor differences in arousal may be
enough to impact judgments which follow upon these physiological changes. Strack,
Martin, and Stepper (1988) asked subjects to watch cartoons while holding a pen in their
mouths. Some subjects were asked to hold the pen in with their teeth, thus adopting a
smiling facial expression, while other subjects were led to frown by being asked to hold
the pen with their lips. Subjects who held the pen in their teeth and were thus led to smile
found the cartoons to be more amusing than the subjects who held the pen in with their
lips and were thus led to frown. Thus, even a subtle change in one aspect of a state of
physiological arousal appears to affect the resulting emotional state as a whole, including
the particular cognitive judgments that come to occur. Understanding the cognitive
processes that occur within emotional episodes appears to require an understanding of
how those cognitive processes relate to states of physiological arousal. In refusing to
recognize the role of physiological arousal, the judgment theorist misses out on an
important aspect of emotional episodes—the complex interaction between states of
physiological arousal and the cognitive processes which accompany them.
One final criticism of judgment theory has its roots in the work of William James
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(1890). James claims:
“If we fancy some strong emotion, and then try to abstract from our consciousness
of it all the feelings and bodily symptoms, we find we have nothing left behind, no
‘mind-stuff’ out of which the emotion can be constituted, and that a cold and
neutral state of intellectual perception is all that remains”(James, 1890, v.2, 451).
Judgment theorists aim to identify the core of an emotional response with precisely what
James refers to as “a cold and neutral state of intellectual perception.” Indeed, there
seems to be nothing implausible about an individual who undergoes cognitive activity
characteristic of an emotion, but at the same time does not become “emotional.” I may
be asked to produce a report regarding the current pay scale for adjunct professors. In
presenting the report, I offer my series of judgments which are all characteristic of
indignation but without ever becoming “worked-up” about the situation—I think that the
current system takes advantage of adjunct professors, preys on false hopes, ought to be
changed, and so on. Contrast this with a case in which the reporting of these judgments
are accompanied by muscle tension, a furrowed brow, profuse sweating, heart
palpitations, and pounding on the desk with a clenched fist. According to the judgment
theorist, there is no difference in emotional state to be found between my calm
presentation and my heated presentation. Judgment theory appears to leave the
“emotionality” out of the emotions.
Some Specific Judgment Theories
The above criticisms are intended to apply to judgment theories as a whole. There are
important differences among judgment theories, however, and some judgment theories
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even make physiological arousal a necessary condition for emotional responses. In this
section I will consider several of the major judgment theories and evaluate how they fare
in relation to the criticisms above.
The paradigm judgment theory is that of Robert Solomon (1976). Solomon
claims that emotions are to be identified with particular evaluative judgments. For
instance, anger is a belief that one has suffered an offense, fear is a belief that one is in
danger, and happiness is the belief that things are going well. According to Robert
Gordon’s (1987) judgment theory, an emotional state is the state that it is because of the
particular cognitions that caused that state. For instance, fearing that p is a state caused
by two particular cognitions: (1) a wish that not-p, and (2) uncertainty concerning
whether or not p is or will be the case. Unlike Solomon, who wishes to identify emotions
with particular judgments, Gordon defines particular emotions in terms of their cognitive
etiology.
Robinson’s three specific criticisms all straightforwardly apply to both Solomon
and Gordon: (1) Neither Solomon nor Gordon account for the key biological purpose of
the emotions—those quick and automatic responses that prepare the organism for action;
(2) Neither Solomon nor Gordon can explain emotional inertia—since neither can explain
the episode as a result of conflict between an automatic physiological response and the
belief that spiders are harmless, each must suppose that a person who responds
emotionally to spiders but knows they are harmless really holds plainly contradictory
beliefs—that spiders are dangerous and that spiders are harmless or that I both wish that
not-p and don’t wish that not-p; and, (3) both will struggle to explain emotional
irrationality—for instance, that I believe Mary has flouted my wishes at the same time
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that I am unsure whether Mary has actually flouted my wishes at all.
Both Solomon and Gordon require that an emotional response be triggered by a
specific cognitive act such as coming to believe that I am in danger. As we have seen,
emotional episodes are commonly initiated before any such cognition has occurred. Both
judgment theories also lead us to lose sight of the ways in which states of arousal
influence judgments associated with the emotions—physiological arousal is not
understood as essential to understanding emotional responses by either Solomon or
Gordon. Finally, both appear to leave out the “emotionality” of the emotions—the
emotion is identified with what James calls only a “cold and neutral state of intellectual
perception” (1890).
The judgment theory of William Lyons (1980) may appear to solve the problems
with the judgment theories of Solomon and Gordon by including physiological arousal as
an essential component of emotional responses. Lyon’s claims that an emotion is an
evaluation that causes an abnormal physiological change in the individual making the
evaluation (Lyons, 1980). Both the evaluation and the abnormal physiological change
are necessary to an emotional state.
While Lyons’ willingness to consider the role of physiological arousal is a step in
the right direction, Lyons does not properly incorporate the role of physiological arousal
into his account. First, Lyons still requires that the state of physiological arousal be
caused by a cognitive evaluation. As seen above, however, emotional responses can
indeed be triggered prior to the occurrence of any such cognitive evaluation. Second,
Lyons does not integrate the role of physiological arousal into his account once the
emotional response is in progress. Physiological arousal can play an important role in
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determining an individual's subsequent cognitive evaluations by leading the individual to
arrive at cognitive evaluations consonant with the valence of his state of arousal and by
leading the individual to avoid cognitive evaluations which are dissonant with the valence
of his state of arousal. Lyons similarly fails to integrate the role of physiological arousal
into his account of the emotions by failing to recognize the ways in which the presence of
a state of arousal leads to the evaluative needs that sustain the emotion process. Making
physiological arousal a necessary condition does at least help account for the
“emotionality” of the emotions, but the overall account is unsatisfactory so long as it fails
to spell out the important roles played by physiological arousal within the emotion
process.
The Virtues of Judgment Theory
Considering the criticisms above, I find that a judgment theory cannot itself be taken as a
complete account of the emotions. However, much of the important work done by
judgment theorists can be assimilated into a Schachterian framework. Instead of
understanding judgment theories as complete accounts of the emotions, we can
understand judgment theories as accounts of the emotional labels which we attribute to
ourselves and to others. In addition, the methods of judgment theorists can play an
important role in coming to understand how an individual arrives at the choice of a
particular emotional label.
Integrating the work of judgment theorists into a Schachterian framework does
involve significant concessions that must be made by the judgment theorist. On a
Schachterian view, the cognitions which are the focus of the judgment theorist’s work
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generally do not initiate the emotional response. The judgment theorist will similarly
have to admit that these cognitions are, in many ways, at the mercy of physiological
factors. For instance, it is rare that an emotional judgment will occur at all if there is no
state of arousal underlying it. In addition, the nature of that state of arousal will play a
role in determining which cognitions arise—a positively valenced state of arousal makes
it less likely that the individual will consider herself to be sad. An emotional episode will
often be terminated not by the individual coming to no longer believe that the emotional
judgment is reasonable; rather, the emotional episode will often be terminated because
the individual’s underlying state of physiological arousal itself is no longer sustainable.
These are significant concessions in that they clearly limit the role of emotional
cognitions in determining the course of the emotional episode.
Judgment theorists, however, still have plenty of work to do. In terms of
Schachter’s theory, the approaches to understanding the emotions developed by judgment
theorists can be understood as shedding light on emotional labels and their use. Much of
this work will focus on particular emotional labels. For instance, what is implied by
coming to understand myself as angry? Robert Solomon’s work can help us answer this
question. Central to my judgment that I am angry is that I believe I have suffered an
offense, that the object of my anger is responsible for the offense, that I take myself to
possess the “moral high ground”, and that the object of my anger deserves some sort
retribution or at least owes me an apology (1976). The job of detailing the structure of
particular emotions could amount to a considerable amount of work considering the
roughly 600 emotional labels available in the English lexicon (Johnson-Laird and Oatley,
1989).
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In addition, the sort of work performed by Solomon and other judgment theorists
can help us understand how individuals arrive at particular self-attributions of emotional
states. As I will argue in the next chapter, there are a variety of types of criteria that an
individual will consider in coming to arrive at a particular self-attribution. As noted
above, the approach of the judgment theorist is limited in that some non-cognitive factors
will enter into the decision. For instance, the judgment theorist will not be in a good
position to determine to what degree the valence of a state of arousal influences one’s
choice of labels. But, as we will see in the next section, there is a wide variety of factors
that enter into a judgment of which emotional label is appropriate in a particular case.
The type of analysis performed by judgment theorists will be of considerable help in
developing an account of these various criteria.
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5.
Elucidation of
Important Concepts
William James wrote (1890): “At a certain stage in the development of every science a
degree of vagueness is what best consists with fertility” (6). The case of Schachter’s
theory of the emotions appears to support James’ claim. Schachter only vaguely defines
fundamental concepts such as evaluative needs, appropriateness, and labeling. He seems
plainly aware that he has not clearly defined these important notions: he describes
‘appropriateness’ as “an apt but odd choice of word” (1959, 126) and follows this
observation with no elucidation of the concept other than a few rhetorical questions. As
noted previously, and in accordance with James’s quote, Schachter’s theory did prove
itself to be very fertile in the two decades following its first appearance in The
Psychology of Affiliation (1959).
By the time of Reisenzein’s influential 1983 review of Schachter’s theory, the
stage had passed in which a degree of vagueness may have been a virtue. Schachter, as
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noted by many students and colleagues, had a marked disdain for replications, follow-up
studies, and even for spending too much time on any one particular subject. This
prejudice ruled out the possibility that Schachter himself would go back and attempt to
elucidate the important ideas that form the foundation of his theory. In addition,
Schachter’s students may have been unlikely to carry out this work, having picked up
Schachter’s own predilection for new and fresh subject matter. Other psychologists who
performed research inspired by Schachter tended to approach Schachter’s theory as grist
for their own mills and did not have much interest in further developing Schachter’s
theory itself. As a result, the psychologists working with Schachter’s ideas tended to
clarify Schachter’s ideas only insofar as was necessary for their own research projects.
Indeed, this haphazard development of the fundamental notions underlying Schachter’s
theory resulted in the widespread adoption of versions of the theory that were clearly at
odds with even Schachter’s thinnest descriptions of the theory. These researchers were
developing Schachter’s ideas with an eye to their own research, and faithfulness to
Schachter’s original formulations was not a high priority.
Philosophers have been similarly uninterested in developing Schachter’s ideas.
The current surge of interest in the emotions among philosophers was in its infancy at the
time that Schachter’s theory was in decline among psychologists. Robert Solomon
(1976) thought that Schachter’s conclusions were too obvious to deserve comment.
Robert Gordon’s (1987) attack on Schachter included no effort to elucidate Schachter’s
theory but instead relied on an untenable version of Schachter’s theory that was accepted
as standard following Rainer Reisenzein’s influential 1983 review—a version of the
theory I will criticize in Chapter Eight. Philosophers have largely joined psychologists in
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the belief that Schachter’s theory of the emotions is an interesting historical artifact but
needn’t be taken too seriously. This dismissive attitude is generally justified by pointing
toward the criticisms of the 1962 experiment that we have already considered. Rarely
have critics attempted to directly criticize Schachter's theory itself.
Perhaps none of this is so surprising. It would be unusual for someone to come
forward and devote themselves to developing a rigorous yet faithful version of
Schachter’s theory while he was still active. In this chapter I will begin to develop some
of the ideas that are fundamental to Schachter’s theory and attempt to show how these
notions relate to one another. I find that the most tenable version of Schachter’s theory is
that originally offered by Schachter. Therefore, the version I defend here I also believe
remains faithful to Schachter’s original account.
Evaluative Needs
The idea of evaluative needs is at the very heart of Schachter’s theory of the emotions.
Evaluative needs provide the vital link between states of physiological arousal and the
cognitions that characterize particular emotions. When an individual finds himself in a
state of physiological arousal, pressure will arise for that individual to evaluate and
understand that state of arousal. The evaluative needs can be met by identifying that state
of arousal as an emotional state such as anger or a non-emotional state such as hunger or
illness. The notion of evaluative needs first appears in Schachter’s The Psychology of
Affiliation (1959). In this work, Schachter investigates the relationship between stress
and affiliative tendency. Affiliative tendency regards one’s preference for being with
other persons as opposed to being alone. Noting a large literature showing that social
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isolation often leads to an increase in anxiety, Schachter carried out a simple study meant
to determine whether anxiety might lead to an increase in affiliative tendency. Subjects
were told that they were about to participate in a study concerned with the effects of
electric shock. A high anxiety group was told that the shocks would be quite painful,
although no permanent injury would result. A low anxiety group was told that the shocks
were mild and no pain would result. This manipulation was successful in producing a
state of anxiety in the high anxiety group—the high anxiety group was significantly more
anxious based on a self-report questionnaire. The subjects were also asked whether they
preferred to wait alone for the study to begin, to wait together with other subjects, or
whether they did not care. The data showed a strong positive relationship between level
of anxiety and affiliative tendency—the high anxiety subjects preferred to wait with
others while the low anxiety subjects tended to not care whether or not they waited with
others.
A follow-up study showed that the affiliative tendency is highly directional under
conditions of anxiety. Anxious subjects who were given the chance to wait with other
subjects strongly preferred to do so while anxious subjects who were given the chance to
wait with persons not involved in the study tended to not care whether they waited with
others or not. Whatever drive leads to the affiliative tendency under conditions of
anxiety appears to be satisfied only by interaction with others who find themselves in a
similar plight.
Schachter then reports on a complex series of studies meant to determine
precisely why subjects prefer to be with others undergoing a similar plight under
conditions of stress. Various possibilities include: (1) Escape: the subjects hoped to get
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out of the experiment and waiting together could be an opportunity to organize; (2)
Cognitive Clarity: the subjects wish to associate with others in order to achieve some
degree of understanding of an otherwise incomprehensible event; (3) Direct Anxiety
Reduction: the subjects hope to gain social reassurance, comfort, and support from other
subjects; (4) Indirect Anxiety Reduction: the subjects hope that simply being around
others may help to distract their attention from the source of their anxiety; (5) Selfevaluation: the subjects hope that social interaction and comparison will allow them to
evaluate and refine their own responses to the anxiety-provoking situation.
Schachter tests these various possibilities by, for instance, placing restrictions on
the sorts of communication that will be allowed in the waiting room and noting the
effects of those restrictions on the strength of the affiliative tendency. As an interesting
side note, Schachter discovers through these studies one of the few strong cases for a
systematic difference between persons of various ordinal positions of birth—first-born
children exhibit significantly stronger affiliative tendencies than later born children under
conditions of anxiety. In addition, Schachter demonstrates that the affiliative tendency
arises under conditions of hunger as well as under conditions of general anxiety.
Schachter concludes that there is evidence that the source of the affiliative tendency is (3)
direct anxiety reduction and/or (5) self-evaluation. First, being with others can lead to
direct anxiety reduction through the reassurance and support of others undergoing a
similar plight—we feel less bad about our own situation if we see others going through
the same thing. Second, being with others can contribute to a process of self-evaluation
in that the individual can compare his initial response with the responses of others
undergoing that same plight. If others are responding similarly, he will feel more
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confident in the appropriateness of his response; if others are not responding similarly, he
will take this as a sign that perhaps he ought to reconsider his initial response. This
process of social comparison is evidenced particularly through findings that show that
being with others leads to a homogeneity and stability of emotional response and
intensity among the group members.
According to Schachter, it was these results which first suggested to him his
theory of the emotions. Noting that much research had failed to identify physiological
differentiators of emotional states, Schachter argues that cognitive factors, including
cognitions concerning the responses of those undergoing similar plights, will enable an
individual to determine the appropriateness of particular emotional responses. Evaluative
needs, then, in The Psychology of Affiliation, appear to arise under conditions of anxiety
and hunger and lead subjects to affiliate with others in order to compare and evaluate
their own emotional responses.
In the 1962 experiment, evaluative needs result from the arousal caused by the
injection of epinephrine. Cognitive work is required for a subject to make sense of his
state of physiological arousal. The subjects who had been informed of the effects of the
injection have little work to do because an appropriate explanation for their arousal is at
hand—the arousal is a result of the injection. Subjects who had not been informed of the
effects of the injection do not have this immediate explanation available and, according to
Schachter’s hypothesis, will look to their situation in order to make sense of their state of
arousal. Schachter demonstrated in The Psychology of Affiliation that states of hunger
and anxiety lead to evaluative needs. The 1962 experiment involves an extra step in
supposing that epinephrine-induced arousal will likewise generate evaluative needs.
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Schachter supports this step indirectly by pointing towards the general uniformity found
among states of arousal. Researchers following Schachter did find that the types of
changes produced by epinephrine, such as increased heart rate, do result in higher levels
of emotionality (Reisenzein, 1983). Barefoot and Straub (1974) found that even false
feedback regarding heart rate led to an increase in evaluative needs. Male subjects, who
thought they were listening to their own heart beats, were played tapes of heart beats
which sped up when particular pictures of female nudes were presented. When the
speeded up heart rate was being played, the subjects spent considerably more cognitive
effort in explaining what they liked about those slides of the female nudes than they did
explaining what they liked about slides of female nudes which were accompanied by the
recording of the slower heart rate.
A common complaint concerning Schachter’s theory of the emotions is that his
theory appears to apply only to unusual emotional episodes (Maslach, 1979). It is
unusual for an individual to suddenly find herself in a state of physiological arousal for
which she has no immediate explanation. Perhaps Schachter’s theory would help us
explain some particular cases of emotion involving artificially induced arousal or illness.
In general, however, Schachter’s theory might be thought to be irrelevant to “everyday”
emotional episodes. It is a proper understanding of the role of evaluative needs within an
emotional episode that makes clear how Schachter’s theory can have more general
applicability.
Evaluative needs arise when an individual finds herself in a state of arousal for
which she has no psychologically stable explanation. A woman in a state of
physiological arousal can satisfy her evaluative needs by recognizing that she has been ill
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and running a fever, or that she drank too much coffee, or that she is angry at her boss, or
that she was upset by the movie she just finished watching. In any of these cases, the
woman can cease to be concerned with explaining her state of arousal when she has
reached a stable understanding of that state of arousal. This is not to say that this
understanding will necessarily remain stable. New information may interfere with a
presently stable explanation—she may take her temperature and discover that she does
not have a fever and she may not be ill after all. Her state of arousal may persist to a
degree that the previously stable explanation is no longer tenable—she may come to
think that the movie alone could really not have upset her to this degree. Simple
rumination regarding her situation may lead to a previously accepted explanation
becoming unstable—the woman may wonder whether she is really angry at her boss or
whether she is really upset about her child’s difficulties at school.
It is not unnatural to think of evaluative needs within the framework of cognitive
dissonance theory as developed by Schachter’s mentor, Leon Festinger (1957).
Recognizing that one is in a state of physiological arousal is dissonant with the cognition
that one is in a neutral, relaxed state of well-being. In the example above, consonance
can be achieved by the woman if she simply eliminates her belief that she is in a relaxed
state of well-being and adopts the belief that she is angry at her boss or that she drank too
much coffee this morning. As Festinger well documents, these sets of cognitions can be
more or less stable and are often in flux as new cognitions are incorporated into one’s
cognitive framework and as new cognitions become salient to the individual.
Schachter's theory, then, is applicable to all and not just some emotional episodes
for two reasons. First, as I argued in Chapter 3, emotional episodes are generally initiated
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through an automatic physiological response involving no cognitions at all or by inchoate
cognitions which do not themselves determine which particular emotion it is that the
individual is experiencing. The individual has no introspective access to the cause of his
state of physiological arousal so could not appeal to this causal etiology even if this could
help with choosing a particular label. The physiological response which results, then,
gives rise to evaluative needs which require that the individual arrive at some
understanding of his state by labeling it with a particular emotional or non-emotional
label. Thus, Schachter's theory is fully operative: physiological arousal generates
evaluative needs which then bring the labeling process into play.
Second, consider a case in which we might think that there was no possible room
for Schachter's theory because the cause of the state of arousal was so obvious that
evaluative needs would just never arise. If I have just finished my fourth cup of coffee I
will likely label my state as jittery. Even if this was an easy attribution to make, it will
not necessarily remain stable throughout the episode. As the arousal persists, I will find
my ruminations drawn towards thoughts concerning the grading I need to do and a
meeting I have scheduled for the afternoon. I may begin to question my earlier judgment
that I was jittery and I wonder if I am really anxious. At this point, my earlier selfattribution of jittery has become unstable and evaluative needs have clearly arisen. So,
even in a case where it appears we can straightforwardly identify the precise cause of my
state of physiological arousal, evaluative needs are likely to arise as earlier selfattributions become unstable. So long as physiological arousal persists, evaluative needs
will cause me to reassess even what appear to be settled understandings of my state of
arousal. Again, Schachter's theory is fully operative: even when the cause of the arousal
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appears obvious, evaluative needs will continue to arise throughout the emotional episode
and require the individual to either reaffirm the label initially chosen or to consider the
choice of another emotional or non-emotional label.
The Labeling Process
The labeling process is the way that evaluative needs are satisfied through the
construction of psychologically stable understandings of one’s own states of
physiological arousal. As a state of physiological arousal is initiated, evaluative needs
arise and a stable understanding of that arousal is required. The evaluative needs will
persist if the individual is unable to arrive at a suitable explanation for or understanding
of that state of arousal. If the individual does arrive at a stable understanding, evaluative
needs can re-arise either due to further changes in arousal or due to a currently stable
explanation coming to conflict with new considerations. For instance, a woman finds
herself feeling shaky, sweaty, nauseous, and tense. Evaluative needs lead her to construct
some stable understanding of that state. Knowing that she did not eat breakfast, she
comes to understand her arousal as a state of hunger. If nothing conflicts with this
explanation, then it could remain stable and evaluative needs could not re-arise. Suppose,
however, that the arousal changes drastically and she finds herself experiencing stabbing
stomach pains. At this point, evaluative needs will re-arise and require that she
reconsider her understanding of her arousal as hunger (“Could I really be this hungry? It
could be appendicitis!”) Her stable understanding of her state as hunger might also be
shaken by new considerations—for instance, she may recall that she had a snack only an
hour ago or she may sit down to eat and find that she has no appetite. Labeling is a
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process in that, so long as a state of arousal persists, the individual will feel pressure to
maintain a psychologically stable understanding of that state. If that understanding
becomes unstable, as it often will, evaluative needs will re-arise and require additional
cognitive effort in the construction of a new explanation.
Labeling, then, is a process in that it is extended in time. A state of arousal
generates evaluative needs, which leads the individual to determine an appropriate label
for that state of arousal. There is a need to maintain a stable understanding of one’s
arousal over time—so long as the arousal persists, evaluative needs threaten to re-arise if
a currently accepted explanation becomes unstable. The “labeling” aspect of the labeling
process is a bit more difficult. I do think, however, that “labeling” is a helpful metaphor
that does convey important truths concerning the ways in which we come to satisfy our
evaluative needs. There are no small tags involved in the labeling process. In its
figurative sense, though, to label is to describe, to designate, or to categorize. Regarding
the labeling process, to label is essentially to make a self-attribution regarding one’s
current state—to describe, to designate, or to categorize one’s state as being of a
particular type.
Consider the example above of the woman who finds herself feeling shaky,
sweaty, nauseous, and tense. In the example, the woman’s evaluative needs are satisfied
by coming to understand her state of arousal as a state of hunger. It is this sort of case
that most clearly fits the labeling metaphor employed by Schachter. The woman satisfies
her evaluative needs by making an explicit judgment that her state of arousal is a state of
hunger—she describes, she designates, and she categorizes her state of arousal as hunger.
Labeling her state of arousal as hunger has important implications. For instance, it
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suggests a means of alleviating the uncomfortable state of arousal—namely, eating
something.
Emotional episodes also fit neatly with Schachter’s labeling metaphor. A man,
finding himself in a state of physiological arousal, might satisfy his evaluative needs by
explicitly coming to label his state of arousal as anger. The man’s evaluative needs are
satisfied by labeling his state as anger in much the same way that the woman’s evaluative
needs were satisfied by labeling her state as hunger—coming to label one’s state as anger
or hunger creates a consonance with the recognition of being in a state of arousal.
Labeling her arousal as hunger not only allowed the woman above to satisfy her
evaluative needs, but it also suggested means of dealing with her state—she could end the
state of arousal by eating something, taking an appetite suppressant, or even drinking
some coffee. Again, as a result of understanding her state as hunger, she would know
that she needed to keep her irritability in check until she was able to get something to eat.
Similar but more complex implications follow for the man who has come to describe,
designate, or categorize his state of arousal as anger. For instance, it would be
appropriate for his anger to end if he discovered that the perceived offense did not
actually occur or that the object of his anger was not responsible for the offense. Being
angry, he may recognize that it is important for him to not inappropriately redirect his
anger at those around him. He may seek revenge for the offense or demand an apology.
These implications arise from the man coming to label, that is to describe, designate, or
categorize, his state of arousal as anger.
The labeling metaphor is not unhelpful and is not so unusual as may be thought.
Coming to label an object, event, or state as being a member of a particular category
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brings a particular structure to interactions with that object, event, or state. An object I
describe, designate, or categorize as a chair, I am likely to sit on. Were I to describe,
designate, or categorize that same object as an ottoman, I would be more likely to rest my
feet on it. These categorizations lend structure in much the same fashion as the selfattribution of anger lent structure in the case of the angry man described above. The
angry man is likely to seek revenge. If he had come to attribute fear to himself, he would
likely run away. Even if it is not such a radical notion, the notion of labeling remains
vague. In the following sections I will attempt to clarify the notion of the labeling process
by discussing the criteria that will lead an individual to choose one particular emotional
or non-emotional label to describe her state.
Appropriateness and the Labeling Process
In the first formulation of his theory of the emotions, Schachter (1959) approvingly
quotes Woodworth and Marquis (1948): “The several emotions are distinguished, in
practice, by stating the external situation in which each occurs and the type of overt
response demanded. Any particular emotion is the stirred-up state appropriate to a
certain situation and overt response” (330). Schachter comments, “’Appropriate’—an apt
but odd choice of word, for just how does the emoter ‘decide’ which is the appropriate
state?” (1959, 126). Indeed, an individual finds herself in a state of physiological arousal
and evaluative needs arise. Evaluative needs demand that the individual come to some
stable understanding of that state by labeling that state in some way—as anger, as
anxiety, or even as indigestion. What criteria will the individual use to arrive at a
particular label for her state?
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As we saw in the discussion of the peripheralist/centralist debate, the various
emotions cannot be differentiated from each other and from non-emotional states through
introspection or quality of feel alone. Because the arousal involved in these various
states is surprisingly homogeneous, one cannot simply close one’s eyes and “feel” what
label is appropriate to that state of arousal. Instead, as the Woodworth and Marquis quote
indicates, one must consider “the external situation in which each occurs and the type of
overt response demanded” (1948, 330).
Features of the external situation in which the individual finds herself will play
perhaps the predominant role in the determination of a particular label for one’s state of
arousal. Faced with a charging bear, fear is a likely choice of label; happiness is not a
likely choice. Learning that one’s stock portfolio has lost half of its value will likely
result in despair; contentment is an unlikely label. Anger is an unlikely response to
winning the lottery, while joy or shock are likely outcomes.
But, features of one’s external situation will never by themselves determine one
particular label which is the only reasonable choice given that external situation.
Consider what appears to be a paradigm case for an episode of anger—I walk out of my
house to find that the rear windshield of my car has been smashed in by a beer bottle.
Anger would indeed be a very likely response to this event. However, it is by no means
the only choice of labels that could be considered appropriate. I may fall into despair,
knowing that I cannot afford the repair and that I do not know what I will do for
transportation. I may become afraid, thinking that my neighborhood has ceased to be a
safe place to live. I may attribute resignation to myself, throwing my hands in the air and
wondering if these trials will ever cease. Although this appears to be a case where anger
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is most clearly called for, a variety of labels must be considered reasonable. Indeed, it is
likely that over the course of this emotional episode, I will attribute a number of these
labels to myself. I may be angry at first, then despairing, and then settle into resignation
for the remainder of the episode.
Features of one’s external situation will not by themselves determine a particular
label—even a paradigm situation for anger will still allow a variety of labels to be
considered appropriate. Instead, I find that features of one’s situation will define an
initial range of labels that could be considered appropriate. Consider the case of the
smashed car windshield. Anger, fury, or frustration may be the most likely choices of
labels. Despair, resignation, sadness, disgust, hopelessness, contempt, or fear may be
likely choices as well. Embarrassment or envy are possible but unlikely (‘I am
embarrassed that I live in a neighborhood where this is a problem’, or ‘I am envious of
so-and-so who just moved out of the neighborhood’). Guilt or happiness would be
unusual responses which would require some sort of explanation (‘This is a painful
reminder of an act of vandalism that I once performed’, or ‘I suppose this means that I
will have to buy that new car I have had my eye on!’) The less likely responses will
probably not be one’s first response to the incident; however, as the episode unfolds it
would not be unlikely that these labels would at some point become active. The features
of a situation, then, will not by themselves determine one particular label which is the
only label that can be considered appropriate; rather, the features of the situation will
serve to determine a range of labels which might be considered appropriate. While any
of the labels in that range might be chosen, some labels will be more likely choices than
others. If a less likely label is chosen, we might even demand some further explanation.
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It is likely that a number of these labels will be chosen at different times throughout the
course of the emotional episode as it unfolds.
If it is not solely features of one’s external situation which determine which
particular label will be chosen to describe one’s current state, then what else enters into
this determination? As suggested by the Woodworth and Marquis quote, it is the features
of one’s external situation combined with “the type of overt response demanded” (1948,
330). Often, it is not misleading to describe these additional factors as ‘normative
factors’. Consider the following case: A student in an ‘Introduction to Psychology’ class
has volunteered for an experiment in order to earn extra credit points. On arriving at the
experiment, she is taken to a room where the experimenter tells her that the experiment
requires that she receive a series of electric shocks. While these shocks should do no
permanent damage, she can expect the shocks to be moderately painful.
This description of the student’s situation leads us to expect that she will select a
label from a fairly wide range of labels that might be considered appropriate to her
situation—anger, fear, concern, panic, indignation, resentment, surprise, anxiety,
frustration, confusion, or terror could all be plausible choices. What will lead the student
to settle on one of these particular labels or on some less likely choice of label? One
factor will be any strategic or practical concerns that may be involved in the choice of a
particular label. Suppose that the student is concerned that becoming angry with the
experimenter might mean that she will be unable to continue with the study and will
thereby endanger the extra credit that she has been promised. In this case, it serves the
student’s strategic interests to avoid ascribing anger or fury to herself, and she may
instead be led to choose a milder label such as concern or anxiety. Other, larger strategic
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concerns may enter in as well—perhaps she hopes to at some point be admitted to the
graduate program in psychology. In this case, she may be led to a less likely choice of
labels—perhaps she decides that taking herself to be curious or expectant will give her
the best chance of impressing on the experimenter that she has the strength of will and
scientific curiosity requisite for success in the psychology program.
Strategic concerns are brought to the fore when the choice of a label is likely to
have a clear impact on important social relationships. Consider the department meeting
in which you have been told that you are not competent to perform some particular task.
A wide variety of labels might be deemed appropriate in this particular situation: anger
(“How dare you!”), fear (“Will I lose my job?”), sadness (“I am a failure”),
embarrassment (“I have been exposed!”), or guilt (“I should have worked harder”). The
choice of any one of these emotional responses will have a specific impact on one’s
social relationships. In this case, these social relationships have important implications
for one’s future well-being. Embarrassment may be taken as an admission of
incompetence and this impression may stay with one’s colleagues. Anger, on the one
hand, may be divisive in a way that could interfere with one’s projects that require the
future cooperation of your colleagues; at the same time, it may unite some subset of the
department against a now common enemy. Fear may give one’s colleagues the
impression that you can be bullied. In this situation, where a wide variety of labels could
be appropriate, these strategic concerns will play perhaps the key role in coming to settle
on one particular label.
Concerns that would be considered cultural may also impact the choice of a
particular label as appropriate. Cultural influences may lead an individual towards or
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away from attributing to themselves a particular emotional label. Imagine the case of the
psychology student mentioned above within the context of a culture that places a high
value on respect towards authority figures. On learning of the shocks that will be
involved in the experiment, a student in this culture will be likely to choose a label that
enables her to avoid an emotional response that could involve a confrontation with the
experimenter. She may avoid attributing anger to herself and instead choose concern,
anxiety, or fear.
Some labels will themselves be discouraged within particular cultures. In a
military culture, for instance, fear may be discouraged in all of its forms—to be fearful is
a sign of weakness. Individuals within this culture will be led to avoid attributing fear to
themselves and will learn to instead consider themselves as anxious, edgy, full of
anticipation, bloodthirsty, or “gung-ho.” Although I discuss them separately, strategic,
cultural, and other concerns are highly interrelated—avoiding the label fear when
interacting with one’s military colleagues can be at the same time a result of both cultural
and strategic concerns. It is cultural insofar as the tendency is a general response to the
military environment which discourages the self-attribution of fear; it is strategic insofar
as it is meant to specifically lead to some particular end such as a promotion in rank or
the increased respect of one’s military peers.
Other influences on one’s choice of labels are best thought of as ethical concerns.
An individual may believe that the use of a particular label itself may be morally
problematic or morally praiseworthy. Steeped in a religious tradition that encourages
humility, an individual may believe that pride itself is morally problematic, and therefore
never an appropriate choice of labels. This same individual may believe that guilt is an
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emotion to be encouraged and will attribute guilt to herself specifically because guilt
itself is morally praiseworthy.
Ethical concerns can also arise when an individual believes that a particular
choice of labels might lead to behavior that is itself either morally problematic or morally
praiseworthy. An individual with a propensity for violence may consciously avoid
attributing anger to himself. Having realized that his violent behavior is morally wrong,
he takes his court-ordered anger management class to heart and refuses to consider
himself angry in order to avoid these violent behaviors. On the other hand, an individual
may take opportunities to attribute guilt to themselves, thinking that a good dose of guilt
will lead them to perform morally praiseworthy behaviors. Perhaps guilt will encourage
them to look for opportunities to help others or to try harder at their own projects in
which they are involved.
Other factors that may influence one’s choice of a particular label as appropriate
are perhaps best thought of as specifically psychological phenomena. Schachter’s
research on the emotions was first inspired by his work on the social comparison
processes described above. Schachter’s (1959) research showed that individuals looked
to those around them who were involved in a similar plight in order to establish points of
comparison in assessing their own emotional states. The psychology student will look to
other students involved in the experiment in order to gauge their responses to the
impending shocks. If she finds that these students are terrified of the shocks, she is likely
to become terrified herself; indeed, if she does not become terrified herself, the group
will exert pressure on her to take the shocks more seriously. If she still refuses to regard
herself as terrified, she will be rejected by the members of the group as unreasonable
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regarding this situation. Social comparison processes, in situations where they can play a
role, will have a significant impact on the self-attributions ultimately made by the
members of the group.
A similar psychological phenomenon is emotional contagion. On entering a room
full of happy people, one tends to become happy oneself even without knowing quite
why the other people in the room might be happy. In the case of social comparison
processes, the individuals in the group generally are aware of what they are all
responding to: the impending shocks of the psychology experiment, for instance. The
group members look to each other for clues on how they ought to respond to this
particular situation. Emotional contagion may be considered a broader phenomenon in
that there is not a presumption that the members of the group take themselves to be
undergoing “the same plight”. In an episode of emotional contagion, it is simply the
presence of persons expressing some emotion that suggests the appropriateness of that
emotion to those who witness the expression.
One very significant factor that will impact particular judgments of
appropriateness regarding emotional labels is the common scripts to which a person
reverts in particular sorts of situations. An individual may have a strong propensity
towards self-attributions of guilt when it comes to dealings with her parents—when
tensions arise, she is quick to take herself to be the cause of the problem. Another person
may have a tendency to become angry in any situation which might be construed as a
confrontation. These patterns or tendencies to label in particular ways take on the
appearance of personality characteristics as they become noticeable to other persons.
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Finally, we may note that some emotional labels may simply be more salient to an
individual than others. Having spent the day reading Camus, I may be especially likely
to attribute despair or “a feeling of absurdity” to myself.
The judgment of which particular emotional label is appropriate to attribute to
oneself is rightfully considered a complicated affair. Given just the bare features of any
particular situation, a wide variety of labels might be reasonably chosen as appropriate to
that situation. Given some extenuating circumstances, even what appears to be an
unlikely choice of labels may actually be completely appropriate. Since the features of a
situation greatly underdetermine the choice of a particular emotional label, appeal will be
made to other sorts of factors. How might the choice of various possible labels affect my
strategic interests regarding this situation? Are there important normative aspects to my
choice of labels such as a risk of violating some cultural or ethical norm? Add to these
considerations the influence of psychological factors such as social comparison processes
and emotional contagion. By no means is this list meant to be exhaustive. Indeed, a
primary task in the study of emotions will be to delineate the factors involved in
judgments of appropriateness and arriving at a picture of the ways in which these factors
add up to a particular judgment of appropriateness.
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6.
Social Construction and the Emotions
Scholarly literature concerning the emotions has not been able to avoid its own version of
the nature-nurture controversy. On the one hand, the emotions are discussed as innate
responses that we owe to our evolutionary heritage. The neuroscientists, biologists,
evolutionary psychologists and others who champion this approach emphasize the
similarities in emotional expression found across cultures and the shared physiological
makeup that underlies emotional responses. On the other hand, anthropologists, linguists,
and social psychologists have emphasized the differences in emotional responses found
across cultures and in the cognitive aspects of the emotions. The emotions are then
understood as complexes of beliefs and attitudes and thereby intimately tied to a specific
culture.
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In this chapter I evaluate one attempt to reconcile these two approaches—the
“naturalistic” and the “constructionist” approaches to the emotions. After identifying
fundamental problems with the synthesis offered by P.N. Johnson-Laird and Keith Oatley
(2000), I go on to develop my own synthesis of the naturalistic and constructionist
approaches that is based on my view that understanding the role of the labeling process is
central to understanding the emotions. My view avoids the problems of the JohnsonLaird and Oatley view and recommends clear strategies for taking full advantage of both
approaches in future emotion research.
Emotion as Biological Response/
Emotion as Social Construction
Social constructionists (Averill, 1980; Armon-Jones, 1986a, 1986b; Harré, 1986) often
present their theories of the emotions in contrast to the views of an unnamed “naturalist”.
The constructionists disapprove of the naturalist’s characterization of the emotions as
“natural responses elicited by natural features which a situation may possess” (ArmonJones, 1986a, 33), as “universal and natural dispositions” (Armon-Jones, 1986b, 64), and
as “genetically determined and relatively invariable structures” (Averill, 1980, 305).
This naturalist thesis to which the social constructionists object finds perhaps its
boldest formulation in the work of Charles Darwin (1872). Darwin viewed the emotions
as similar to reflexes—as very fast and automatic responses, “hard-wired” into the
individual through evolutionary development. Darwin noted the inability of cognitive
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processes to interfere with these reflex-like responses and offered a quaint experiment as
evidence:
“I put my face close to the thick glass-plate in front of a puff-adder in the
Zoological Gardens, with the firm determination of not starting back if the snake
struck at me; but, as soon as the blow was struck, my resolution went for nothing,
and I jumped a yard or two backwards with astonishing rapidity. My will and
reason were powerless against the imagination of a danger which had never been
experienced” (1872, 38)
Like a simple reflex, Darwin’s emotional response is triggered by specific features of his
environment without the need for, or even contrary to, cognitive mediation.
The emotion-as-reflex theme is also found in the work of William James:
“Instinctive reactions and emotional expressions thus shade imperceptibly into each
other. Every object that excites an instinct excites an emotion as well” (1890, 442,
emphasis in original). The emotion itself is the perception of an unfolding instinctive
reaction, carried out “without instruction, pattern, or experience” (James, 1890, 383,
quoting Chadbourne, 1872). Like Darwin, James takes these responses to be hard-wired
into the individual: “His nervous system is to a great extent a preorganized bundle of
such reactions—they are as fatal as sneezing, and exactly correlated to their special
excitants as it is to its own” (1890, 384).
Many contemporary emotion theories as developed in the neurosciences,
psychology, and biology are also based on a view of the emotions as simple, instinctive
reflexes. Psychologist Robert Zajonc concludes that “for many species, efficient stimuli
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exist that are capable of eliciting fixed action patterns by virtue of an automatic process
that short-circuits even ‘global’ or ‘spherical’ perceptions” (1984, 263-4). Philosopher
Paul Griffiths, drawing on the work of psychologist Paul Ekman, discusses emotional
responses as “affect programs”—sets of physiological responses that “unfold in [a]
coordinated fashion without the need for conscious direction” (1994, 77).
In the work of Darwin, James, and the contemporary naturalists we see played out
the themes to which the constructionists object. On these naturalistic accounts, the
emotions are responses hard-wired into individuals as a result of their evolutionary
heritage. These responses are of short duration, need not be learned, and are highly
resistant to cognitive control.
An overview of constructionist theses will serve to illustrate the very different
picture of the emotions as developed by the constructionist theorists. A first
constructionist thesis can be identified clearly in the work of Robert Solomon (1976).
According to Solomon, an emotion is an evaluative judgment: my anger is my judgment
that I have been wronged, my embarrassment is my judgment that I am in an awkward
situation, and my sadness is my judgment that I have suffered a loss. The view that
emotions are essentially judgments leads to a very different picture than the view that
emotions are a sort of reflex. Emotions considered as judgments will not be products of
an individual’s evolutionary history but, instead, products of a culturally transmitted
conceptual framework for the assessment of one’s situation and relationships to others. It
is in this sense that the emotions can be considered essentially “cultural constructions.”
My anger is not a genetically based response to particular features of my situation; rather,
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my anger is essentially the judgment that my situation falls into a particular culturally
constructed category.
It is important to recognize the sense in which the emotions are said to be
culturally constructed according to a judgment theory of the emotions. It is not enough
that it is culturally determined which specific situations might lead to a particular
emotion. One might be tempted to observe that what elicits anger is culturally
determined—not shaking hands, or failing to remove one’s hat during the national
anthem, for instance. One might think that this observation demonstrates the manner in
which anger is culturally constructed. This, however, does not show that anger itself is
culturally constructed.
The judgment theorist will say that anger itself is culturally constructed because of
the vast culturally constructed network of concepts that are attached to the concept of
anger. If I become angry with a colleague for insulting me, I do more than just categorize
the situation as an offense. My judgment has implications relating to responsibility and
status, for instance. By becoming angry I attribute responsibility for the offense to the
specific object of my anger. By becoming angry I demand a temporary increase in status
in relation to the object of my anger—I claim the moral high ground for myself and
demand that others involved in the episode recognize my temporary elevation in status.
This is not necessarily the case regarding anger-like episodes in other cultures. In a
different culture, anger may be viewed as childish and the angry person may temporarily
decrease their status in relation to the person who is the object of that anger. This would
then constitute a difference within the concept of anger and not just a difference in how
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the concept is applied. It is these sorts of differences that the judgment theorist takes to
demonstrate the cultural construction of the emotions.
A second constructionist thesis focuses on the notion of emotion as the adopting
of a transitory “social role.” Psychologist James Averill (1980) argues that the functional
significance of the emotions is mostly to be found in the various social roles that are
adopted within an emotional episode. To use an extreme example, the Gururumba of
New Guinea experience “wild-pig behavior” (Newman, 1964). While in the state of
“being a wild pig” the individual runs wild, attacks bystanders, and loots small items.
The Gururumba explain this phenomenon as the result of being bitten by the ghost of a
recently deceased member of the community. The functional significance of wild-pig
behavior can be seen when we consider the roles that are adopted in a particular episode.
Wild-pig behavior is usually observed in young men who are struggling to meet financial
obligations. After an episode of wild-pig behavior, members of the community respond
by giving the individual special consideration in his attempts to meet his financial
obligations. Although unacknowledged by either party, the individual’s adopting of the
wild pig role results in members of the community adopting the role of “sympathetic
creditor.”
The functioning of social roles can be seen clearly in the case of a grieving
individual. The grieving individual might expect a boss to lighten her duties or give her
time off, she can expect words of encouragement or a sympathetic ear from friends,
neighbors are likely to drop off food, and so on. Social roles are an important part even
of more “primitive” emotions such as anger. Those who are even peripherally connected
to the episode of anger will be pressured to “choose sides” between the angry individual
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and the object of that individual’s anger. The social relationships among all individuals
involved are altered as each chooses (or refuses to choose) with whom they are siding.
The Johnson-Laird and Oatley Synthesis
Psychologists P.N. Johnson-Laird and Keith Oatley (2000) recommend a synthesis of the
“naturalist” model of the emotions as a sort of innate reflex with the constructionist view
that the emotions must be understood as socially constructed. According to the JohnsonLaird and Oatley synthesis, differentiating three types of emotions will help us recognize
both the innate components and the socially constructed components of the emotions,
allowing us to glean lessons from both the constructivist and the naturalist points of view.
While I believe that Johnson-Laird and Oatley are correct that a synthesis of views is
possible and desirable, I do not believe that they have found the right synthesis. I will
argue that Johnson-Laird and Oatley’s synthesis rests on some dubious distinctions and
fails to do justice to the constructionist side of the synthesis. I will then propose a
synthesis that avoids these problems with Johnson-Laird and Oatley’s account.
Johnson-Laird and Oatley identify three types of emotions: basic emotions,
object-oriented emotions, and complex emotions. The basic emotions are “innate and
common to all human societies” (2000, 461). Happiness and sadness, anger and fear are
identified as the basic emotions. The object-oriented emotions are to be found in all
human cultures as well but differ from the basic emotions in that each necessarily
requires “a known object”. Johnson-Laird and Oatley suggest attachment, parental care,
sexual desire, disgust, and personal rejection as a list of the object-oriented emotions.
Finally, the complex emotions “are elaborations of the basic and object-oriented
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emotions, but they depend as well on conscious evaluations that are social and that make
reference to mental models of the self or others” (2000, 462). Remorse, indignation,
pride, embarrassment, and romantic love are examples. Remorse, then, is sadness about
an action plus the requirement that “you judge yourself to have acted against the moral
code embodied in your idealized mental model of yourself” (2000, 462).
On this analysis every emotion involves an innate component—either it is a basic
or an object-oriented emotion which is itself an innate mechanism, or it is a complex
emotion which necessarily involves an underlying and innate basic or object-oriented
emotion. Social construction enters at the level of the complex emotions. The complex
emotions involve the activation of a basic or object-oriented emotion plus a conscious
cognitive evaluation. Because these conscious cognitive evaluations reflect the norms
and conventions of a particular society, the complex emotions will bear the mark of that
particular culture. Thus, Johnson-Laird and Oatley’s account constitutes a synthesis of
the naturalist and constructionist views.
My first objection to Johnson-Laird and Oatley's synthesis is that this taxonomy
of emotion types, on which the synthesis rests, fails to hold up to scrutiny. Consider the
postulated class of basic emotions—happiness, sadness, anger, and fear. What holds this
class together? Johnson-Laird and Oatley tell us only that the basic emotions are innate,
found in all cultures, and do not require objects. First, it is not obvious that happiness,
sadness, anger, and fear are innate or found in all cultures. The most likely explanation
for their view is that Johnson-Laird and Oatley assume that one of the naturalist views
described above can explain this class of emotions—either the view that there is an
essence to each of these basic emotions in the form of an affect program or that there are
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unique brain pathways, the activation of which constitutes the activation of one particular
basic emotion. As I argued in chapter two, there is suggestive but far from sufficient
evidence for the existence of affect programs even after the 100+ years of research
inspired by William James. Oddly, Johnson-Laird and Oatley postulate only four basic
emotions while the leading affect program researchers suggest that there are five to seven
affect programs (Ekman 1984, 1994; Griffiths, 1997). Similarly, no evidence is cited that
might support the idea that the four postulated basic emotions have an essence in unique
brain pathways that correspond to their activation. The proposed list of basic emotions is
surprisingly mysterious—no reasons are given to suggest that happiness, sadness, anger
and fear are innate or found in all cultures. The assumption that happiness, sadness,
anger, and fear are innate and common to all cultures is an enormous leap considering
that this is precisely what is at issue.
Second, Johnson-Laird and Oatley claim that the basic emotions are unique in that
they do not require objects. This claim is supported by the observation that we can
understand the use of ‘angry’ in a sentence such as “For no good reason, Joseph K. woke
up feeling angry” (2000, 462). Joseph might be angry for no good reason but there must
be some object of Joseph’s anger—even a vague object such as ‘things in general’ or ‘the
world’. A sentence closer to the point, ‘Joseph K. woke up angry but was not angry at
anything’, I think is not coherent at all. Oddly, the ‘object-oriented’ emotions which do
require an object according to Johnson-Laird and Oatley, seem to be more likely
candidates for not requiring particular objects: sexual desire, and personal rejection, for
instance.
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The most helpful statement that Johnson-Laird and Oatley offer in explaining
their view of the proposed basic emotions is that happiness, sadness, anger, and fear
correspond to “nonsymbolic signals” in the brain. No explanation is offered by JohnsonLaird and Oatley regarding precisely what this might mean. Perhaps Johnson-Laird and
Oatley expect that happiness, sadness, anger, and fear will each be found to correspond to
the activation of a unique pathway in the brain. As mentioned above, however, no
evidence is offered that supports the idea that distinct brain pathways might correspond to
these four emotions. While this lack of evidence itself might be enough to undermine the
proposed framework, there are additional reasons why we should not be optimistic about
this proposal. First, according to Johnson-Laird and Oatley, the proposed basic emotions
do not involve conscious cognitive evaluations. Precluding conscious cognitive
evaluations leaves only lower level processing to determine which emotion is appropriate
to a particular circumstance. I am skeptical that lower level processes might be up to the
task of making these of determinations. Consider the case of the colleague at the
department meeting who claims that I am unfit to perform some particular task for the
department. A determination of which emotion is appropriate to this case would seem to
require sophisticated processing—certainly nothing in the “raw perceptual data” will be
sufficient. Even an “easy” case such as seeing a stranger vandalizing my car remains
ambiguous. Lower level processing might lead me to recognize that some emotion or
other might be appropriate—the unexpectedness of the sight, the darkness of the parking
lot, or the menacing movements of the vandal might be recognized as salient by lower
level processes. However, a determination of what emotion in particular is appropriate
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must require conscious cognitive processing. Whether I will become angry or fearful in
this case is not an easy question even if I have all of my cognitive abilities at my disposal.
Second, there are strange questions that arise from Johnson-Laird and Oatley’s
proposal that happiness, sadness, anger, and fear are basic emotions that then might
occasion complex emotions if a conscious cognitive evaluation is added. Suppose there
is a fear signal (if there were such a thing) propagating through my brain as I observe the
vandal defacing my car. I now consciously evaluate my situation and determine that I am
angry at the vandal. Am I wrong? Am I in fact fearful and I have made an error by
taking myself to be angry? Or, suppose that I consciously determine that I am fearful.
Am I fearful because of the activation of a fear pathway or because of my conscious
cognitive evaluation that I am afraid? Even if Johnson-Laird and Oatley turn out to be
correct that these four emotions each correspond to a unique pattern of neural activity,
they have failed to recognize that happiness, sadness, anger, and fear are also categories
we employ in our conscious cognitive evaluations. Johnson-Laird and Oatley believe
that the proper conscious cognitive evaluation will transform my fear response into a
state of jealousy. It is unclear why the proper conscious cognitive evaluation could not
transform my fear response into a state of anger. If I could be considered angry in this
case, Johnson-Laird and Oatley have not explained how we should understand the
apparent contradiction that anger is both a basic, innate emotion and also a cognitively
complex, culture-bound emotion.
I do, in fact, agree that there is something like Johnson-Laird and Oatley’s
“nonsymbolic signals” involved in cases of emotion. In Chapter 2, I described Joseph
LeDoux’s “low-road pathway” (1996) and the role it plays in the generation of emotions.
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As I argued in Chapter 2, however, I believe that it is a mistake to identify the pathways
identified by LeDoux as the "fear circuit." Giving these low-level pathways the names of
particular English emotion words invites important confusions. It is not safe to assume
that the propagation of Johnson-Laird and Oatley’s nonsymbolic signals, if they are
shown to exist, will correspond to the situations appropriate to the everyday English
words ‘happiness’, ‘sadness’, ‘anger’, and ‘fear’. We do know that 'happiness', 'sadness',
'anger', and 'fear' are used as self-attributions within an emotional episode and that
reference to these self-attributions is important in explaining emotional episodes. Our
self-attributions clearly make the categories 'happiness', 'sadness', 'anger', and 'fear' part
of the domain of our conscious cognitive evaluations. However, it is far from clear that
the categories 'happiness', 'sadness', 'anger', and 'fear' pick out particular circuits or
"nonsymbolic signals" in the brain as is assumed by Johnson-Laird and Oatley. Until
there is some evidence that 'happiness', 'sadness', 'anger', and 'fear' are good descriptors
for the sort of neural activity described by Johnson-Laird and Oatley, we ought to avoid
confusion by restricting the use of 'happiness', 'sadness', 'anger' and 'fear' to where we
know they apply--to our cognitive evaluations.
Johnson-Laird and Oatley are attempting to develop an account of the emotions
that makes clear those aspects of the emotions that are innate and those aspects of the
emotions that are specific to particular cultures. The research of anthropologists has
suggested that what we speak of as anger is not to be found universally in all cultures.
For instance, anthropologist Jean L. Briggs (1970) has persuaded many that anger is not
to be found at all among the Utku, a community of Inuit in the Northwest Territories,
with whom she has spent considerable time. Similarly, anthropologist Robert Levy
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(1973) has claimed that there is a notable lack of anger among the Tahitians. Levy has
identified forty-seven words in the Tahitian lexicon which he believes are related to what
we call anger and these are frequent topics of discussion. However, he also claims that
episodes of anger-related emotions are extremely rare. There is a strange irony in the fact
that Johnson-Laird and Oatley rest their account of cultural variation in emotional
responses by assuming that anger is universal among all human beings.
My first objection to Johnson-Laird and Oatley's synthesis, then, regards their
distinctions between basic, object-oriented, and complex emotions. The synthesis rests
on the idea that every emotion is rooted in an innate and universal basic or objectoriented emotion and cultural variation enters at the level of complex emotions. If this
taxonomy itself is ill-founded, then the synthesis cannot stand. To the degree I have
shown this taxonomy to be problematic, the synthesis itself must be considered
problematic.
My second objection to Johnson-Laird and Oatley’s proposed synthesis is that it
fails to incorporate important constructionist insights. According to Johnson-Laird and
Oatley, their framework of basic, object-oriented, and complex emotions allows us to
incorporate the insights of both the “naturalist” and the “constructionist” projects. The
basic emotions are understood as innate and common to all human societies. These
shared basic emotions account for the similarities in emotional responses across cultures
and reflect our shared neurophysiological makeup. The constructionist elements of
Johnson-Laird and Oatley’s framework enter at the level of the complex emotions. The
complex emotions are a product of an occurrent basic emotion and a conscious cognitive
evaluation. Remorse, for instance, is sadness plus a judgment that you have “acted
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against the moral code embodied in your idealized mental model of your self” (JohnsonLaird and Oatley, 2000, 462). This judgment necessarily involves the norms and values
of your particular culture, therefore complex emotions must involve an element of social
construction. Johnson-Laird and Oatley point out two ways that this constructionist
element affects the emotions. First, cultural influence plays a role in determining which
situations may provoke an emotion. Second, cultural influences will influence the
manner in which a particular emotion is expressed.
Cultural influence clearly does play a role in determining which situations will
provoke a particular emotion. Raising one’s middle finger in the direction of the driver
who just cut you off is likely to provoke anger in America while it may garner no
response in France. On the other hand, pulling down one’s eyelid will assure an angry
response in France but only a confused look in America. It is similarly clear that culture
will influence the manner in which a particular emotion is expressed. Cultural standards
will dictate the appropriate manner of expressing anger within the particular context in
which the anger has arisen. A student angry about a test score will appeal to these
standards in determining a course of action. Cultural standards may require that the
student not express her dissatisfaction at all due to the higher social status of the
professor. Alternatively, cultural standards may encourage her to air her grievances with
the professor. In this case it is likely that cultural standards will go on to define the
appropriate means through which this may be accomplished—for example, that she ought
to discuss the matter with the professor in private but not in front of the entire class.
This may appear to be a significant bow to the social constructionists in that it
allows cultural influence to impact both the input and output sides of the emotions—what
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situations might give rise to a particular emotion on the input side, and how that emotion
may be expressed on the output side. This is misleading. In fact, Johnson-Laird and
Oatley’s synthesis makes room for only a nearly trivial degree of social construction.
Consider our earlier discussion of the constructionism of Robert Solomon (1976, 1984).
A judgment that one is angry is more than a plain categorization of one’s situation as
being of a certain type. To become angry is to call into effect a vast culturally
constructed schema of anger-related concepts. For instance, to become angry with a
driver who has cut you off in traffic is not simply to recognize that you have suffered an
offense. Rather, becoming angry carries with it a wide range of implications: that the
other driver bears responsibility for her action, that she is deserving of some sort of
retribution, that you are claiming the moral high ground with respect to this event, and
that you are at least temporarily demanding an increase in your own social status in
relation to the other driver. The social construction of anger involves the social
construction of this vast network of anger-related concepts. Johnson-Laird and Oatley’s
observation that culture aids in determining which situations are appropriate to a
judgment of anger misses this much deeper sense in which anger should be recognized as
culturally constructed.
Similarly, Johnson-Laird and Oatley’s observation that cultural considerations can
influence the manner in which an emotion is expressed falls short of the constructionism
discussed above that is envisioned by James Averill (1980). Johnson-Laird and Oatley
suggest that cultural consideration may “influence” the expression of a particular emotion
on the model of Paul Ekman’s (1984) display rules--norms regarding who can express
what emotions to whom and when they can properly express them. According to Ekman,
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Western display rules include “men should not cry, females (except in a maternal role)
should not show anger, losers should not cry in public and winners should not look too
happy about winning” (1984, 320). The social roles described by Averill are not rules
regulating the otherwise “natural” expression of emotions; rather, Averill suggests that
the social roles adopted in the course of an emotional episode are essentially cultural
constructions and not modifications to “natural” emotional expressions. Again JohnsonLaird and Oatley do not make room for constructionism as envisioned by the
constructionists; instead, room is created for only a trivial sort of constructionism that
allows cultural concerns merely to influence otherwise natural responses.
There is much to recommend a synthesis of the naturalist and constructionist
views of the emotions. The existence of cultural differences regarding the emotions and
the close connection between the emotions and culture-specific beliefs and values suggest
that making room for cultural influence in a theory of the emotions will be of primary
importance. At the same time we find striking similarities across cultures regarding
emotional expression and the situations which give rise to episodes of emotion. In
addition, our increasing understanding of the neurophysiological mechanisms involved in
the emotions suggest that a theory of the emotions must also make room for what
Johnson-Laird and Oatley call the “naturalistic” perspective. The synthesis
recommended by Johnson-Laird and Oatley, however, is based on a problematic
distinction between basic and complex emotion types and fails to allow adequate room
for constructionist insights into the emotions. In the following section I will develop a
synthesis based on the notion of the labeling process that avoids the difficulties of the
Johnson-Laird and Oatley account.
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Labeling and the Social Construction of the Emotions
On the view of the emotions I have been defending, an emotion is a function of a state of
physiological arousal and the labeling of that state of arousal with an emotional label.
For instance, my response to finding that my car has been vandalized is a state of
physiological arousal interpreted and described as anger. As discussed in Chapter Three,
a state of physiological arousal can be triggered very quickly and without need for
cognitive involvement. A sudden, loud sound or a rapidly changing light gradient of the
sort produced by a quickly approaching object can generate a physiological response
without the need for higher cognitive processing. Physiological arousal can also result
from a chain of reasoning such as ‘I do not have money in my account to cover the check
I just wrote’. Slighter changes in physiological arousal occur regularly—an unexpected
knock at the door focuses one’s attention on this new event and causes changes in muscle
tension and breathing, for instance. The human organism is highly sensitive to change
and to failures of expectation. Physiological arousal is the nearly inevitable result of the
recognition of either.
An individual who finds herself in a state of physiological arousal has no
straightforward introspective access to the cause of a particular state of physiological
arousal. The individual is left in an uncertain condition in which she finds herself in a
state of physiological arousal for which she has no direct or immediate explanation. This
uncertain state leads to evaluative needs (Schachter, 1959)—that is, a need to make sense
of one’s state of arousal by interpreting and describing that state in a particular way. The
individual will be led to choose what she takes to be the most appropriate label for that
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state. If she recognizes that the figure lurking in the shadows poses a danger to her well
being, she may label her state of arousal fear. If she finds that she has just been falsely
accused of wrongdoing, she may label her state indignation. If she realizes that she has
simply had too much coffee to drink, she might label her arousal using a non-emotional
term such as over-caffeination.
Consider how this framework relates to a synthesis of the naturalist and
constructionist approaches to the emotions as described by Johnson-Laird and Oatley.
Johnson-Laird and Oatley (2000) attempted to reconcile the two views by drawing a
distinction between the basic and the complex emotions. The basic emotions were innate
while the complex emotions were subject to cultural influence because they necessarily
involved culture-bound cognitive processing. From the point of view of the labeling
process, however, no such simple distinction is possible; rather, every emotion will
involve both innate and socially constructed components.
The genetically determined brain structures that initiate a state of physiological
arousal upon, for instance, the perception of a rapidly changing light gradient clearly fall
on the innate side of an innate/socially-constructed divide. The particular components of
the resulting state of physiological arousal will likewise be counted as innate—the
syndrome of changes in heart rate, breathing, muscle tension, attention, and hormone
levels, for instance will be best explained from the naturalist point of view. The
mechanism of evaluative needs that leads an individual to label her states of arousal will
also be approached best from a naturalist perspective.
On the other hand, the terms that an individual has available to label her states of
arousal and the choice of terms that will be used in a particular instance will be best
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explained from the point of view of emotions as social constructions. Behaviors that are
likely to result from a given emotion are also best understood from the constructionist
point of view—both the behaviors of the person undergoing the emotion and the
behaviors of the other participants in the emotional episode. If the emotion enters into
longer-term planning and action it is the social construction approach that will shed light
on its role.
This division between innate and socially constructed aspects of the emotions can
help us recognize the proper approach to explaining these various components of
emotional responses. For instance, the innate aspects of the emotions described above
such as the mechanisms that initiate physiological arousal, the functioning of evaluative
needs, and the nature of the physiological arousal which underlies emotional states can be
best approached from the perspective of naturalistic disciplines such as the neurosciences,
biology, and empirically-minded psychology. On the other hand, understanding the
emotion lexicons of various cultures, the roles adopted during the course of an emotional
episode, and the ways in which particular emotions enter into longer term planning and
behaviors may be approached best by linguists, anthropologists, or clinically-minded
psychologists.
Both the Johnson-Laird and Oatley synthesis and my synthesis based on the
labeling process are meant to pull together the naturalist and constructionist approaches
to the emotions. The outcomes, however, are quite different. The Johnson-Laird and
Oatley synthesis rests on an awkward distinction between innate basic emotions and
culturally influenced complex emotions. One reason to clarify the distinction between
innate and socially constructed aspects of the emotions is so that we can delegate the
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study of each of the various components of the emotions to the discipline best suited to
make progress regarding that particular aspect of the emotions. Johnson-Laird and
Oatley leave us with the very odd view that happiness, sadness, anger, and fear fall under
the domain of the naturalistic disciplines such as neuroscience and biology while the
study of pride, guilt, resentment, and jealousy ought to be delegated to the
anthropologists and linguists. My Schachterian synthesis not only avoids the problems
generated by the basic/complex emotion distinction, it also leads to an intuitive account
of which disciplines might make the best progress in studying particular aspects of the
emotions. Instead of differentiating research programs by assigning particular emotions
to each discipline, research is delegated according to which discipline is best prepared to
explain each individual component that enters into an emotional episode.
In addition to the awkwardness of the basic emotion/complex emotion distinction,
I described above how the Johnson-Laird and Oatley synthesis allowed room for only a
trivial sort of constructionism. I will attempt to show that my synthesis based on the
labeling process allows for a full range of constructionist insights while still respecting
the domain of the naturalists. I will now describe how the claims of social
constructionists can be cleanly incorporated into the framework I have described.
When evaluative needs lead an individual to label her state of arousal, she will
make use of emotion terms from the emotion lexicon of her culture. The English
language contains almost 600 emotion terms that might serve to label one’s state while
the Chewong of Malaysia have just eight emotion words (Johnson-Laird and Oatley,
1989; Heelas, 1986). Choosing a label is foremost a judgment or the making of a claim
that one’s situation is of certain type. Anger might be chosen if the individual believes
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that she has suffered some offense; sadness might be chosen if she takes herself to have
suffered a loss. Choice of a label, however, is not just a simple categorization.
Prescriptive implications will follow from the choice of a particular label. If the label
anger is chosen, the individual ipso facto asserts that the object of the anger bears
responsibility for the offense, that the object of the anger has acted contrary to some
moral code, and that some form of retribution is appropriate. The particular emotion
words available to an individual within a culture along with the implications that follow
from the evocation of a particular emotion word as a label constitute a conceptual scheme
that members of that culture use in order to evaluate and assess their personal situations
and relationships. The construction of this evaluative conceptual scheme is a cultural
accomplishment. We considered this type of constructionist insight above as it is found
in the work of Robert Solomon (1984) and it finds itself right at home within the
framework of the labeling process.
Some short-term behaviors that might follow from an emotion will be best
understood by focusing on the physiological arousal side of the emotional equation. The
freezing response that results from the perception of a loud, unexpected sound will be
explained best by examining the mechanisms that initiate a state of arousal—the “low
road” pathway as described by Joseph LeDoux, for instance, which can trigger a freezing
response without the need for cognitive input. However, medium or long-term
behavioral tendencies that are likely to follow from an emotion on the part of both the
emotional individual and others involved in the episode are a product of the labeling of
the emotional state and are not to be found in the state of arousal itself. It is labeling that
gives the emotions direction and meaning within the emotional episode. This is the case
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even regarding simple behaviors that follow from an emotion. Striking out at the object
of my anger requires that my state has been labeled anger. Without that label there is no
reason to strike out and no object identified as deserving to be struck. A bare state of
arousal cannot determine even this simple sort of short-term action tendency.
The influence and role of labeling becomes much more complex when we
consider medium and long-term behaviors that might result from an emotional episode—
especially when we consider how labeling influences not just the “labeler” but others
involved in the episode as well. To label one’s state anger is to bring a particular
structure to the emotional situation. The individual who becomes angry thereby claims a
position of moral superiority over the object of that anger. Anger requires that the claims
of the opposed parties be given equal consideration even if in general the parties occupy
very different social strata—my anger at the current administration demands that my
grievances are given weight regardless of my much lower social position. Anger also
forces persons to choose sides. Simply being aware of the anger-mediated situation
compels individuals to take sides with one or another of the involved parties. Anger also
forces a very specific role on the object of that anger. The object of the anger is forced to
either justify their act, apologize for the offense, or make themselves scarce. Anger
involves much longer-term consequences as well. Interactions between the parties will
take place against the background of the past episode of anger. The two parties may
avoid each other in the future or the episode may have the unusual consequence of
bringing the parties closer together.
Evoking the label anger brings this entire complex structure to the social
relationships that exist among the parties involved in the anger episode. Individuals even
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peripherally related to the event will be led to adopt the social role that corresponds to her
place in the episode. Indeed, failing to accept the prescribed role will be taken as a role
in itself—failing to take sides in a dispute involving a friend implies either that one is not
a true friend or that one thinks that the friend’s anger is unjustified. These types of social
roles, which constructionists such as James Averill (1980) urge are key to understanding
the emotions, are brought into play through labeling.
Social roles attached to anger vary widely from culture to culture. Anthropologist
Robert Levy (1973) tells us that the Tahitians understand anger-like responses as
dangerous emotions that are to be avoided. As opposed to Western anger which
generally increases the power and social status of the angry individual, anger-like
responses among the Tahitians are more likely to be viewed as childish and, accordingly,
the individual in an anger-like state ought to lose status as a result of their response.
Johnson-Laird and Oatley’s (2000) claim that anger is an innate response found in all
cultures sounds very thin in light of this sort of cultural variation. Even the most “basic”
emotions involve complex social and cultural elements.
My framework for reconciling the naturalist and constructionist approaches to the
emotions, based on the notion of the labeling process, passes the test of accounting for
the insights of two leading social constructionists, Robert Solomon (1984) and James
Averill (1980). This account makes room for constructionism without giving up insights
that can be obtained from the naturalist perspective. The Johnson-Laird and Oatley
(2000) synthesis left us with a clumsy basic emotion/ complex emotion distinction and
little room for constructionist insight while a synthesis based on the labeling process
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avoids both of these drawbacks. In the next section I will discuss how progress might be
made in understanding the emotions across cultures.
Cross-Cultural Study of the Emotions
I have recommended that we understand the emotions as the product of a state of
physiological arousal and an emotional label that is used to interpret and describe that
state of arousal. A virtue of this view is that it leads to an intuitive account of how we
might structure research programs studying the emotions. Recognizing the distinction
between the two sides of the emotional equation, the state of physiological arousal and
the labeling process, can help investigators more clearly formulate their research
objectives and allow results from various disciplines to be more cleanly assimilated into
the body of knowledge concerning the emotions. My labeling process-centered view of
the emotions suggests a division of labor in investigating the emotions, generates
particular questions that ought to be pursued, avoids conceptual pitfalls, and provides a
means for organizing this diverse research under one larger conceptual framework.
Study of the nature of the states of physiological arousal involved in the emotions
is best served by the “naturalistic” disciplines—the neurosciences, biology, and the more
experimental and evolutionary-minded branches of psychology. Changes in heart rate,
breathing patterns, patterns of attention, muscle tension, hormone levels, posture,
autonomic nervous system activity, and facial and vocal expression are all aspects of the
physiological arousal associated with the emotions. How, or to what degree, these
aspects of arousal are integrated with one another is not well understood. Are these
aspects of arousal centrally controlled or do they function relatively independently? Are
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there clearly differentiated patterns of physiological arousal or are states of arousal
roughly the same across various emotional episodes? The naturalistic disciplines are well
equipped to answer these questions. The naturalistic disciplines are similarly well
equipped to investigate the ways in which these states of arousal are initiated.
Neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux (1996), for instance, has identified specific brain
pathways, the activation of which triggers states of physiological arousal.
The naturalistic disciplines, however, must be very careful when dealing with
labels. In Chapter Three, I described how Paradiso et al. (1999) misinterpreted results of
their study of affective responses to pictures by assuming that activation of the amygdala
in response to unpleasant pictures could be equated with fear. Any label is a cultural
construct that essentially involves complex relationships with the practices of that culture
and the overall conceptual scheme used by that culture to evaluate one’s situation,
including the implications that the label entails for attributions of praise and blame,
status, and responsibility. The neuroscientist or biologist who is tempted to claim that
she has discovered anger, pride, peur, jalousie, ureshii, or kanashii in the brain or body
ought to be extremely careful. Does the presence of this neural or bodily state really
correlate with all and only instances of that particular emotion? As I argued in Chapter
Three, I believe that emotion theory will be best served if these researchers resist the
temptation to identify these states with particular emotions. We know that particular
emotional labels such as anger, pride, peur, jalousie, ureshii, and kanashii are important
self-attributions that are vital to explaining the emotions in general. We can avoid error
by recognizing that these labels are elements of the cognitive domain.
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Perhaps unsurprisingly, the study of labels themselves is to be the domain of the
disciplines that have advocated a constructionist approach to understanding the
emotions—anthropology, sociology, history, linguistics, and clinically or socially minded
psychology. Scholars of art and literature can also play a role in developing greater
understanding of the emotions. Scholars in these fields will make a broad inquiry into the
practices and language use of particular cultures in relation to emotional labels.
Anthropologists and linguists can develop lexical models of the set of emotion labels
found in a culture and examine relative similarities among those labels and make explicit
the implications that follow from the use of a particular label (Wierzbicka, 1999; White,
2000). Study of metaphors relating to the emotions will be enlightening as well.
Discussions of the emotions among the Cheke Holo of Santa Isabel often revolve around
the metaphor of being tangled (Lakoff and Kovecses, 1987). Accordingly, specific social
mechanisms are available for disentangling—formal meetings that allow participants to
discuss conflict and arrive at a public account of the emotional situation that is acceptable
to the involved parties. In addition, the Cheke Holo commonly make emotional
attributions using the plural pronouns “we” or “us”. These observations suggest that the
emotional life of the Cheke Holo could be interestingly different from that of Western
English speakers—emotions are understood as and dealt with as social and public entities
in a way that they are not in Western culture.
The development of script-like event schemas is another method that has been
used to codify the roles of particular emotions within a given culture. These event
schemas describe the ways in which a particular emotional episode is likely to unfold.
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Anthropologist Geoffery White (2000) has used event schemas to represent aspects of
Cheke Holo emotional life:
FIFIRI NAGNAFA
->
Disentangle
DI’A TAGNA
->
Retaliate
DI’A NAGNAFA
->
Repair
MAMAJA
->
Withdraw
TRANSGRESSION->
A transgression among the Cheke Holo might result in any of the four particular emotions
in the middle column. Each emotion then involves its own primary action tendency.
Event schemas of this sort are a way of formalizing the emotional practices of a particular
culture. An individual who determines that a transgression has occured is likely to
attribute to themselves fifiri nagnafa, di'a tagna, di'a nagnafa, or mamaja. The choice of
a particular label will imply a particular action tendency--to "disentangle" the conflict, to
retaliate, to repair any damage done, or to withdraw from the situation.
While event schemas can provide a general sketch of the emotional lives of a
community, the close study of actual emotional discourse can fill in gaps and show how
the emotions function in defining social relationships and identities. A fascinating
transcript from a Cheke Holo “disentangling” meeting illustrates how the use of two
specific Cheke Holo emotional labels interact with social roles and relationships (White,
2000). A young man claims that he is mamaja, until his brother reminds him that it is not
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appropriate to be mamaja with their uncle who has done much for them in the past. At
this point, the young man switches to a new label to describe his state—di’a nagnafa.
Referring to the event schema above, we see that the young man has taken back his claim
of mamaja that would lead to “withdrawal” behaviors and substituted a claim of being
di’a nagnafa, which will lead to “repair” behaviors. Thus, the young man might be seen
as using the label mamaja as a way of expressing the seriousness of his concerns, even
going so far as to invoke a label that is inappropriate in dealings with an uncle.
Switching to the label di’a nagnafa demonstrates that the young man is willing to make
amends and repair their strained relationship. Lexical models, the study of metaphor,
event schemas, and close study of emotion discourse together have the capacity to
provide researchers with a good understanding of the emotional lives of a given culture.
Other approaches to the study of emotion labels are available as well. Study of
literature and the arts offers the researcher a glimpse of the mythology attached to various
emotion labels (Robinson, 2005). Historians can track changes in the use of particular
emotion labels to find how the emotional practices of a community change over time
(Stearns, 2000). A large toolbox is available for studying emotion labels and their role
within a community. This brief review of methods available to the “constructionist”
disciplines ought to demonstrate that it is not only through the naturalistic disciplines that
progress in understanding the emotions can be made.
Emotional labels are not static entities, and as researchers study and discuss these
labels they are at the same time creating the emotional practices of our culture. The study
of emotional labels is our community’s way of reflecting on our own emotional
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practices—noting inherent tensions, recommending new practices, and perhaps drawing
on the emotional practices of other cultures as a way of evaluating our own.
Johnson-Laird and Oatley (2000) are correct that neither the naturalistic
disciplines nor the traditionally constructionist disciplines have exclusive access to the
tools that can increase our understanding of the emotions. However, Johnson-Laird and
Oatley’s synthesis of naturalistic and constructionist approaches to the emotions goes
wrong in maintaining a problematic basic emotion/complex emotion distinction and
failing make room for constructionists to contribute their full range of insights. My own
synthesis, which takes the labeling process to be fundamental to understanding the
emotions, allows both the naturalistic and constructionist disciplines to pursue the study
of the emotions, each using their own tools to their full advantage.
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7.
Animal Emotions
Neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp (1998) asks you to imagine for a moment that you are
faced with the devil himself. The devil offers you a challenge: answer one question
correctly and you will be free to go; answer incorrectly and you must follow him home
where you will remain for all eternity. The devil’s question is “Do at least some nonhuman animals have internally experienced emotional feelings?” Panksepp believes that
when the stakes are this high even the most skeptical among us would be compelled to
answer that “Yes, at least some non-human animals do have internally experienced
emotional feelings.” Based on his observations of animal behavior, biologist Marc
Bekoff (2000) agrees that a confident “Yes!” is the only reasonable answer to the devil’s
question. But, Bekoff laments, we can never know with certainty because emotions are
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private entities—it is impossible for us to know with certainty what animals are truly
feeling.
Isn’t it just like the devil to pose a bad question for his challenge? In this chapter,
I will show that the devil’s question ought to be reformulated in order to eliminate
important ambiguities. I do believe that many aspects of human emotional responses can
also be found in non-human animals. However, worries about anthropomorphism ought
to be taken seriously--especially when we are tempted to attribute particular emotions
such as anger, guilt, or jealousy to non-human animals. By drawing some careful
distinctions regarding the devil's question as posed by Panksepp, we can begin to see how
we may be able to make progress understanding animal emotions and at the same time
avoid problematic anthropomorphisms.
Emotions and Feelings
The devil’s challenge asks us to answer whether or not non-human animals have
internally experienced emotional feelings. In everyday language it is common to use the
word ‘emotion’ and the word ‘feeling’ interchangeably. However, the use of the word
‘feeling’ adds an additional level of complexity and an important ambiguity to the devil’s
question. Feelings are generally considered to be essentially private experiences that, in
some sense, occur within the mind of a particular individual. The redness of a rose in my
experience, the hurtfulness of my headache, or the sensation of tingling in my hand when
it has fallen asleep is not directly accessible to any other being. Philosophers often refer
to these sensations as ‘qualia’ (Jackson, 1982). You might infer the quality of sensation
that I am experiencing at a given moment through my behavior, but it is impossible for
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you to observe directly the quality of my sensations. Indeed, although I go through
behaviors that indicate I am experiencing the pain of a headache, it may be that I am
experiencing nothing at all and performing pain-related behaviors like a robot, going
through the motions with no accompanying sensations, no qualia, at all.
Equivocating between feelings and emotions invites confusion because it suggests
that emotions must be essentially private events the way that feelings are understood to
be. Marc Bekoff (2000) complains that the private nature of emotional feelings has
allowed skeptics to deny the existence of animal emotions on the grounds that we cannot
say with certainty what those animals are feeling. In current literature, however, the
question of whether other beings have subjective feelings is addressed as a question about
consciousness—as a question regarding the problem of other minds. We ought to do the
same thing in considering the devil’s question. If the devil is interested in whether
animals have emotions, then we ought to simplify matters by eliminating the additional
complication of the problem of other minds. We can rephrase the devil’s question as “Do
at least some non-human animals have emotions?” If the devil is still interested in
feelings, we can then have a further discussion of qualia and the problem of other minds.
Affect Programs, Emotional Learning, and Social Behaviors
Current emotion theory takes many of the essential aspects of the emotions to be plainly
observable. Recall philosopher Paul Griffiths' claim (1997) that it is the affect programs
which are essential to understanding many of the emotions. An affect program is
understood as a complex and coordinated set of physiological changes that in humans
involves changes in heart rate, breathing patterns, autonomic nervous system changes,
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hormonal changes, facial expression, vocal expression, and muscle tension. These
physiological changes are triggered automatically and unfold without the need for
conscious direction. While I have argued that appeal to affect programs cannot serve as a
complete account of any particular emotion, affect programs are an important component
of human emotional responses. There is nothing essentially private about the unfolding
of an affect program--the unfolding of an affect program is plainly observable.
Affect programs of one sort or another appear to be found up and down the
phylogenetic tree. The nematode worm, with just 302 neurons, displays a withdrawal
response when the petri dish in which it is contained is tapped (Rankin, 2000). In
response to the expectation of an electric shock, rats exhibit a response involving
freezing, defecation, ultrasonic vocalizations, and changes in heart rate and blood
pressure (LeDoux, 1996). Closely related animals are found to display similar sorts of
affect programs—ape and monkey responses, for instance, are found to involve facial
expressions that are recognizably similar to human facial expressions (Darwin, 1872).
Other higher animals, less closely related to humans, exhibit their own complex affect
program responses that appear to be less similar to those of humans. Based on my many
years of informal cat observation, cat affect programs involve little in the way of facial
expression but include behaviors such as purring and an unusual lowered jaw and
widened eye response to novel smells. Affect programs, although differing from species
to species, are an important aspect of human emotions that we share with other animals
all over the phylogenetic tree. The study of affect programs in animals is, in fact, a less
complicated affair than the study of affect programs in humans. Animal affect programs
can be more easily studied in the lab, where it is notoriously difficult to generate real
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emotional responses in human beings without violating the sensibilities of ethics
committees. The affect programs constitute a component of human emotions which we
clearly share, in various forms, with non-human animals. Furthermore, there is nothing
essentially private about the unfolding of these affect programs which might make it
impossible for us to know with certainty whether the affect programs were really to be
found in non-human animals.
In recent years, the neurosciences have been able to shed light on the mechanisms
underlying human emotions. As I discussed in Chapter Three, Joseph LeDoux (1996)
has demonstrated the central role of the amygdala in emotion responses and has mapped
the brain circuits that trigger activation in the amygdala. LeDoux uses his research to
make claims about human emotional responses but his research is carried out using rat
subjects in a laboratory. Here again we find that it may be easier to make progress
studying emotional responses in animals than in human beings. We can say that LeDoux
has already done much to improve our understanding of emotional processes in rats. The
neurological underpinnings of emotional processes in human and non-human animals are
not themselves private and unobservable. Due to the similarities between rat and human
brain structures, we know that the functioning of LeDoux's "fear circuit" is a mechanism
that underlies emotional responses in both humans and in rats. Thus, we can point to
these shared processes as another shared component of both human and non-human
emotional responses.
Marc Bekoff (2000) reports that he has observed social contagion effects in dogs.
In the same way that a human’s mood may improve simply by walking into a room of
happy people, a dog that sees other dogs playing is likely to become playful herself.
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Social contagion is a process that has been recognized in human subjects and in nonhuman subjects. Social contagion constitutes another feature of human emotion
processes which appears to be shared with at least some non-human animals. Again,
there is no reason to think that this process must be understood as private and
unobservable.
These aspects of the emotions that are shared between human and non-human
animals are significant. These, and likely many other aspects of human emotion
processes are shared by at least some other non-human animals. In addition, we need not
share Bekoff's worry that our claims about animal emotions must always be uncertain
because we do not have direct access to animal minds--these aspects of emotion
processes are plainly observable in both human and non-human animals.
Labeling
In this project I have emphasized the significance of the self-attribution of emotional
states. In the case of the department meeting, I find myself in a particular state of
physiological arousal but it is my self-attributions of emotional states which will largely
determine how the emotional episode unfolds. Am I angry because I believe I have been
insulted? Or, am I embarrassed because I think that my colleague has exposed some
deep, personal insecurity of mine? If I interpret my emotional state as anger, this will
have important behavioral consequences. I will sit tall in my chair, point my finger, glare
at the object of my anger and defend my ability to carry out the task in question. If,
however, I become embarrassed, I will sink down in my chair, blush, and say nothing at
all, or even pathetically apologize for suggesting I may have been up to performing the
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task. There is an enormous range of emotional labels which I might attribute to myself.
Each label has the potential to lead the emotional episode in a different direction. In
addition, these self-attributions can change throughout the course of the emotional
episode--each time shifting the nature of the emotional episode itself. I believe that the
ability to label one's emotional states brings a tremendous complexity to one's emotional
states.
Our cognitive abilities affect our emotional lives in many significant ways. The
spectrum of what can cause emotions becomes much wider. Because I can represent to
myself possible events in the future and I can represent to myself events that have
occurred long ago, we have the capacity to have emotional responses to events that are
temporally distant. I can respond emotionally to the thought of my own death or to the
possibility of my car breaking down on a long road trip. I can respond emotionally to the
memory of my first day in grade school or to the memory of winning an award. I can
respond emotionally to spatially distant events as well, as when I respond emotionally to
the thought that a friend’s plane is landing just about now. I can also respond
emotionally to abstract objects, as when I undergo an emotional response to a lack of
justice in the world or to a concern that I may fail to live up to my own ideals. Not only
do self-attributions of emotional states generate particular behavioral tendencies as
described above in the case of the department meeting, they also suggest when an
emotion is no longer justified. If I am angry and then discover that I had misheard my
colleague and that there really was no offense, then I ought to cease to be angry. If I am
embarrassed, but then learn that what I believe to be a shortcoming is in fact a quality of
mine that my colleagues appreciate, I ought to cease to be embarrassed.
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Do animals share these cognitive abilities? In particular, do animals attribute to
themselves particular emotional states such as anger, guilt, or jealousy? This cannot be.
To consider oneself angry is to call into play a vast, culturally-constructed framework of
concepts. As we saw in Chapter Six, to consider oneself angry is to claim that you have
suffered an offense, that the object of your anger is responsible for the offense, that the
object of your anger ought to apologize or suffer some form of retribution, that if it is
discovered that the object of the anger was not responsible for the offense that the anger
ought to cease, and so on. Since non-human animals cannot make these sorts of selfattributions, I believe that we ought to avoid attributing these particular emotions to nonhuman animals.
While I am more than happy to grant that non-human animals share in many
aspects of human emotion processes, attributing particular emotions to non-human
animals will lead us to tempting but unjustifiable anthropomorphisms. The difficulty
with resisting attributing particular emotions to animals is that oftentimes animals do
appear to be angry, or guilty, or jealous. In the next section I will attempt to show that
even in cases where it sure looks like the animal is angry, guilty, or jealous, we ought to
resist those attributions because they involve genuinely problematic anthropomorphisms.
Anthropomorphism
For clarity, I suggested that the devil reformulate his original question, “Do at least some
non-human animals have internally experienced emotional feelings?” as “Do at least
some non-human animals have emotions?” I am afraid, though, that the question must be
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refined one step further. If the devil were to ask “Do at least some non-human animals
share important components of human emotional processes?” I could give an unqualified
and enthusiastic “Yes!” Many components of human emotion processes are found even
in relatively simple organisms. Affect programs, sets of relatively automatic and
coordinated physiological changes, are found in a rudimentary form in the withdrawal
response of the nematode worm and in the gill withdrawal response of aplysia (Kagan,
2002). Humans and at least some non-human animals share neurological structures
which underlie emotional responses. I am ready to accept that particular social aspects of
the emotions are found in animals as well, as in the case of social contagion effects in
dogs.
I am prepared to grant that emotions play a very important role in the lives of nonhuman animals. Emotional responses have clear adaptive value when, on seeing a large
dog, the cat prepares itself for action through a host of automatic physiological changes
including increased heart rate, focused attention, erection of the hairs and hissing. In
addition, emotional responses are likely to facilitate bonding among animals.
If, however, the devil were to ask “Do at least some non-human animals get
angry, guilty, or jealous?” I would have to say “No!” I do think that oftentimes it is
extremely tempting to attribute anger, guilt, and jealousy to non-human animals. Their
behaviors do often appear to be very similar to that of humans in similar circumstances.
However, anger in a human being involves an array of implications which would be
unlikely to apply to any non-human animal. As I have claimed above, anger implies that
the object of that anger is responsible for some offense suffered by the angry person. To
become angry is to temporarily claim for oneself the moral high ground in the episode. It
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is to implicitly demand some restitution from the object of the anger, even if that
restitution is only to be forced to suffer through being the target of anger.
To attribute particular emotions such as anger, happiness, or contempt to a nonhuman animal is to imagine that human codes regulate animal behavior. These essential
implications of calling a state anger will be invalid when applied to a non-human animal.
I can describe my cats as angry when they run out of food, but I do not think that they
believe they have suffered some offense at my hands. Nor could I imagine that my cats
would cease to be angry if they discovered that I was not responsible for failing to fill
their food bowl. Such ideas, I have to think, are way beyond the world of cats.
I think we risk two dangers by attributing particular human emotions to nonhuman animals. First, we risk forgetting the incredible complexity that our human ability
to self-attribute emotional labels brings to human emotional episodes. By labeling an
emotional response using a particular emotional term, that response takes on a
significance and a structure that would otherwise be lacking. We may forget that
particular emotion labels play real and active roles in human emotional episodes and we
may slide into thinking that emotion labels do nothing more than vaguely refer to broad
categories of situation types.
Second, we risk sloppy research regarding the emotional states of non-human
animals. If I observe animal behaviors and interpret their emotional states according to a
human framework I am doing the animals a disservice. If we rely on English emotion
words as categories for understanding animal emotions, we risk failing to capture the
subtleties and nuances of animal emotions as they actually occur. Here is the simple
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alternative: We ought to study animal emotions in their own right, much the same way
that we study human emotions.
Specifically, we ought to focus on the various components of animal emotion
processes. Many questions can be asked about animal affect programs, neurophysiology,
and the social aspects of animal emotions. Is there differentiation between affect
programs in this particular species? How many do there appear to be? Under what
circumstances is a particular affect program initiated in this species? Do animals of this
particular species learn to respond to some potential emotional triggers more quickly than
other potential triggers? Do animals of this type tend to affiliate with others under
conditions of stress, do they avoid others, or is the animal indifferent? Advances in
neuroimaging techniques have led to significant advances in understanding human
emotions in recent years. An investigation of the neural mechanisms underlying
emotional responses in animals can lead us to new models for thinking about animal
emotions.
It is in observations of animal behavior that we would be most tempted to
attribute human emotions to non-human animals. Rather than broad narratives of animal
emotional life that rely on the attribution of human emotions to animals, we ought to
focus on extremely careful descriptive observations of animal behavior. What events led
up to the emotional response? What expressive behaviors occurred? How did other
animals react to the expressive behaviors? What did the parties to the emotional episode
do when the episode was finished? Was the structure of the group or the relationships
therein affected by the episode? By answering these sorts of questions, we can hope to
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discover the rules that govern emotional responses in animals rather than overlay human
standards on animal behavior.
I am optimistic about the possibility of understanding animal emotions. We have
many tools available that have been successful in allowing us to better understand human
emotions. However, there are no shortcuts for learning about animal emotions. Although
we might take as starting points what we know of the emotional behaviors of other
closely related species, we cannot assume uniformity across species. In particular, we
cannot take what we have learned about human emotion and assume that these categories
will do justice to emotional responses as they are found in non-human animals.
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8.
Mislabeling
An individual who finds herself in a state of physiological arousal will look to her
situation in order to determine an appropriate label for that state of arousal. If she looks
to her situation and finds herself at a lively party, she will likely label her state of arousal
happiness or euphoria. If she finds herself faced with the loss of a loved one, she labels
her state sadness or grief. Faced with a suspicious stranger in a dark alley, she labels her
state as fear or terror. In each of these cases, the label that the individual attributes to
herself appears to be a straightforwardly appropriate choice.
However, what about a case in which the woman at the lively party, with a smile
on her face, claims to be resentful? Or the case of the woman who claims, through her
tears, to be happy upon learning of the loss of a loved one? Or the woman who, despite
her trembling and the look of terror on her face, says that she was indignant towards the
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stranger who stole her purse? In these cases, the labels chosen do not appear to be
straightforwardly appropriate choices. In fact, we are tempted to say that something has
gone wrong--that the individual has labeled her state incorrectly.
In this project I have considered and rejected a variety of views which would
make it simple to determine whether an individual had labeled her state correctly or
incorrectly. If an emotion was a particular bodily state or the perception thereof, we
could check to see whether the individual really was in that particular bodily state. If an
emotion were a particular pattern of neural activation, we could check to see if she was
really in that particular neural state. If the features of the individual's situation could
themselves determine one corrrect self-attribution, we could check to see if the situation
and the emotion matched one another.
On a Schachterian view, however, there is no simple, single criterion to which we
can appeal in order to determine whether or not the individual has labeled correctly. As I
discussed in Chapter Five, there are many criteria that enter into the choice of a particular
label. Accordingly, there are many types of mistake that can be made in the process of
choosing a label in a particular case. While it may not be possible to create a simple
account of mislabeling, some account is necessary. We can certainly disagree with an
individual about whether or not her choice of label is appropriate. I may claim that a
colleague's anger is unjustified or I may believe that my friend who claims to be happy
upon learning that he has lost her job has made some mistake. I may even be able to
reason with these individuals and convince them that their self-attributions were wrong
and ought to be changed. The labeling process can go wrong and an account of the ways
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in which it can go wrong can explain these types of disagreements and it can explain how
reason-giving can lead an individual to change her mind regarding her emotional state.
The Causal Attribution View of the Labeling Process
There is, however, one way of understanding the labeling process that suggests that we
could appeal to just a single criterion in order to determine whether or not an individual
had labeled her state of arousal correctly or incorrectly—the causal attribution view of
the labeling process. According to this view, the labeling process is the attributing of a
cause to one’s state of physiological arousal. Mislabeling could then occur if one
attributed a cause to their state of physiological arousal that was different from the actual
cause of that state of physiological arousal. Schachter himself never describes the
labeling process as a process of causal attribution and many aspects of Schachter's view
are at odds with this idea. The normative influences which Schachter believes influence
labeling, such as emotional contagion, social comparison processes, and strategic
concerns fall outside a straightforward judgment of causal attribution. Nevertheless, this
version of the theory has been attributed to Schachter by many of his critics such as
Rainer Reisenzein (1983) and Robert Gordon (1987).
I find the causal attribution view of Schachter's theory to be both untenable and
unfaithful to Schachter's actual views. In this section I hope to show that the causal
attribution interpretation of the labeling process is flawed. My arguments will show both
that the notion of causal attribution is itself less clear and helpful than may be thought
and that many important influences on the labeling process cannot themselves be
understood within the framework of causal attribution. As opposed to the causal
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attribution interpretation of the labeling process, I urge that we adopt the appropriatenesscentered account of the labeling process which I recommended in Chapter Five. This
version of Schachter's theory is both tenable and faithful to Schachter's original account.
I have suggested that the labeling process ought to be considered not as the
attribution of a cause to one’s state of arousal, but rather as a judgment about what label
is most appropriate given one’s situation. First, there are aspects of the labeling process
that cannot be understood as aspects of a process of causal attribution. When an
individual looks to her situation in order to choose a label, one source that she may draw
from is the emotional responses of those around her who find themselves in a similar
plight. By taking into account their behaviors, expressions, and verbal reports of their
own emotional states, she is able to use the emotional responses of others as points of
comparison that she can use to guide her own response. An appeal to the emotional
responses of others for help in choosing a label is a search for normative input into one’s
decision—what emotional state should I be in right now? It is possible to imagine that I
appeal to the emotional responses of others because I might learn from their responses
what they believe has caused their own states of arousal and that I could then use this as
evidence for determining what caused my own state of arousal. Having been told that we
will be experiencing painful electric shocks as part of a psychological experiment, I will
look to the rest of my group in order to help me determine my own emotional response. I
do not think, though, that I look to the rest of the group because I am uncertain as to what
has caused my state of arousal. Instead, I believe that I just want to see how the others
are responding so that I can compare my response to their responses. If their responses
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are similar, I will be more confident in my own response. If their responses are
significantly different, I will be led to question my own response.
Other factors that lead to the choice of a particular label similarly cannot be
described as a process of causal attribution. Someone who places great importance on
the virtue of humility may avoid the label pride. This is not due to his beliefs about what
may have caused his state of arousal, but instead due to his conviction that pride is to be
guarded against and thus an inappropriate choice of label. On the advice of his probation
officer, an individual may focus on considering himself aloof rather than becoming angry
when faced with a possible confrontation that could result in the serving out of his
suspended jail sentence. This is not because he has forced himself to attribute the cause
of his arousal in a different direction—it is because the behaviors likely to result from
becoming angry will have a substantial negative impact on his own well-being.
Second, I believe that the notion of attributing a cause to my state of physiological
arousal is a more complicated affair than we may be tempted to think. The etiology of a
particular state of arousal can be vastly complex and involve reference to a host of initial
conditions and disparate sorts of causes that would be very difficult to pull apart and
identify. Suppose I experience a state of arousal and look to my situation in order to
attempt to determine the cause. There is a student handing me a late paper. I am on my
way to an unpleasant meeting and I forgot to eat breakfast this morning. I have been
fighting off the flu so I took pseudoephedrine earlier in the day. I also drank two cups of
coffee. All of these and many more causes might be cited as explanations for my current
state of arousal. It is possible that if any one of them had not been the case, I would not
be in my present state of arousal. However, none of this really seems to help me
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determine a particular label. It is still necessary to settle on an overall judgment of what
label is most appropriate to my current situation.
Furthermore, we do not have introspective access to the actual causes of our states
of arousal. If we understand the labeling process as requiring the individual to attribute a
cause to her state of arousal, we are attributing massive and systematic error to normal
emotional functioning. As discussed above, the actual causal history of any state of
physiological arousal will be very complex. If labeling is a matter of the individual’s
attributing a cause to her state of arousal, she will never produce anything approaching
the complexity of the actual causes of her current state. The individual in the state of
arousal has no special introspective access to these causes that we might think could aid
in determining and pulling apart the actual causes. On the causal attribution view,
everyday normal emotional functioning involves massive confabulation. Because the
labeler will never be able to generate the actual etiology of their state of arousal, any
episode of anger, fear, jealousy, or embarrassment rests on significant error. This is not
the sort of intuitive mislabeling that is the subject of this chapter—for instance, the
woman who claims to be happy upon learning of the death of a loved one, even as she
displays the full and complete picture of grief. This is a sort of error that pertains to
every instance of emotion—any label that might be chosen to describe a state of arousal
can only amount to a thin and misleading account of the cause of a state of arousal.
Finally, determining a cause for my state of arousal still underdetermines a choice
of labels. Suppose I identify a student’s handing me a late paper as the cause of my state
of arousal. Does this settle which particular label will apply to this case? I could be
angry about the student’s presumptuous attitude in demanding that the paper be accepted.
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I could be thrilled that the student has finally handed in the paper he has been promising
me. Or, I could just be surprised that the student actually got around to writing the paper
that was already two weeks late. Deciding on a plausible proximate cause for my state of
arousal is insufficient for determining a label.
If labeling were a matter of causal attribution, an account of mislabeling would be
very straightforward—the choice of a particular label would be correct if it picked out the
actual cause of the state of arousal being labeled, it would be incorrect if it failed to pick
out the actual cause of that state of arousal. We have seen above, however, that the
causal attribution interpretation of the labeling process is insufficient. I claimed in
Chapter Five that the proper understanding of the labeling process is as a judgment of
appropriateness. On this view, the choice of a label involves a wide variety of factors.
Features of the situation will play a primary role—if I have just lost my job, the labels
fear, sadness, anger or relief may be likely labels, but labels such as pride or jealousy
would be unlikely given the circumstances. Normative factors, such as ethical or cultural
concerns will also enter into a judgment of appropriateness—an individual steeped in a
culture that values humility might be directed away from labeling states of arousal as
pride. Anger as a response to a blunder made by one’s incompetent boss may make for a
poor strategic decision if choice of that label could cost you your job—quiet frustration
might be a better choice. Finally, factors such as social comparison processes will enter
into a judgment of appropriateness as well—if I see my colleagues react with horror to a
proposal made by the university administration, I will take this into account in
determining the most appropriate label for my own state of arousal.
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As opposed to the causal attribution interpretation, an appropriateness-based
account of the labeling process provides us with no fact of the matter against which we
can compare a chosen label in order to determine if that label is “correct” or “incorrect”.
In Chapter Three, I argued against the views of William James (1884a) and contemporary
peripheralists such as Paul Griffiths (1997) that the features of a state of physiological
arousal itself establish a “correct” label for that state. Likewise, I argued against the
views of Walter B. Cannon (1927) and contemporary centralists such as Joseph LeDoux
(1996) that the activation of particular neural structures establishes a “correct” label for
the resulting emotion. Finally, I argued in Chapter Five that the objective features of
emotional situations do relatively little to constrain a reasonable choice of labels—a wide
variety of labels can apply to any emotional situation. Having eliminated these
possibilities there appears to remain nothing against which we can compare a label in
order to judge whether that choice of that label is “correct” or “incorrect”.
Strong intuitions remain, however. I recognize instances of anger in myself that I
later came to believe were unjustified—that is, I now believe that I mislabeled my state of
arousal as anger and should have labeled it in some other way, perhaps as frustration or
as embarrassment. We do change our minds about labels even during the course of an
emotional episode—I come to think that my initial response of fear was unjustified and
that it ought to be replaced with expectance or anticipation. We commonly disagree over
the justification for a particular label. I may think that my irritation is justified when a
friend cancels plans we have made, but my friend might think that this is unfair. In fact,
we are often able to discuss the situation and come to an account of the situation and a
corresponding pair of labels that are acceptable to both parties involved. The fact that we
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can have disagreement and rational discussion concerning the justification for a label, the
fact that we can look back at emotional episodes and come to think that we were wrong
about the choice of a label, and the strength of the intuition that something has gone
wrong in the case of the woman who, through her tears, tells us that she is happy about
the loss of a loved one, amounts to compelling reason to think there must be some
possibility of mislabeling.
On the view of the labeling process I have been developing, there is no easy
standard by which we can determine if a given label is “correct” or “incorrect”. Instead,
it is necessary to develop an account of mislabeling based on the notion of
appropriateness: that is, what constitutes an inappropriate choice of labels. In the next
section I will begin to develop this account of mislabeling that will allow us to evaluate
the choice of particular labels while still allowing room for the flexibility that is inherent
in the labeling process.
Self-Deception and Deceptive Emotional Fronts
There are two important types of cases that would be tempting but ultimately misleading
to describe as cases of mislabeling: cases of self-deception regarding one’s emotional
state and cases involving deceptive emotional fronts. As will be seen in the following
analysis, the two types of cases are conceptually distinct but also tend to shade into one
another within an emotional episode. Self-deception regarding labels arises when the
label that is operative in a particular emotional situation is different from the label that
the individual consciously attributes to herself. Consider a man who has just learned that
he has been laid off from the job he has worked for the past twenty years. After receiving
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the news, the man tells his co-workers that he is relieved that he has been laid off because
he has been at that job for too long anyhow and is ready for a change. On the drive
home, he tells himself that he is relieved to be free of his slave driver boss and that now
perhaps he can pursue his dream of opening his own business. At the same time,
however, the man stops at a neighborhood bar where he complains of the uncaring
attitude of management that led him to be laid off through no fault of his own. His
thoughts revolve around how he is going to pay the next month’s bills and how he is
going to find work at his age. At one point, he disappears to the parking lot to cry.
Although this man maintains both to himself and to others that he is relieved, his
behaviors suggest that he is actually angry or afraid. The man might even maintain his
claim of being relieved even if confronted with this contrary behavioral evidence. This
man is engaging in true self-deception regarding his emotional state—he genuinely
believes that he is relieved and that his being laid off was a positive event.
On the other hand, the man may report to others that he is relieved about having
been laid off from his job while at the same time recognizing that he is in fact angry or
afraid. In this case, the man is merely maintaining a deceptive emotional front—he
maintains his relief to others while simultaneously recognizing his own anger or fear.
The man is not deceiving himself in this case; he hopes only to deceive those around him.
In employing a deceptive emotional front, the man will maintain in his verbal reports that
he is relieved and will attempt to maintain expressive and other non-verbal behaviors that
are consistent with this claim. He will refrain from crying or slouching or shaking in
view of others and he might make much of his hopes for opening his new business.
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While he does not claim to himself that he is relieved, he will work to convince others
that this is an accurate description of his emotional state.
Having established this distinction between true self-deception and the
maintaining of a deceptive emotional front, we can now consider the case of the woman
who, through her tears, claims to be happy about the death of a loved one. I hope to show
that this woman's claims do not rest on an error in the process of labeling but, instead,
reflect particular strategic aspects of the labeling process. In addition, we will see how
honest self-deception and deceptive emotional fronts interact within a particular
emotional episode.
We are imagining a woman who claims to be happy about the death of a loved
one, even though she displays the complete picture of grief: she has taken a week off of
work, she spends much time alone thinking about the loved one that she has lost, she
cries often, she has little appetite, and she avoids friends whom she would generally be
happy to see. Based on this description, it is possible that the woman is engaged in
honest self-deception—despite her behaviors, she might consistently claim to herself that
she is happy. On the other hand, the woman may be maintaining a deceptive front—she
may recognize that she is sad or grieving but maintain in her verbal reports to others that
she is happy.
In fact, it is likely that the woman’s case is neither purely honest self-deception
nor purely the maintaining of a deceptive emotional front. At times the woman may
honestly believe that she is happy about the death of the loved one. The woman can
support this claim by limiting her attention to positive aspects of the larger event—she
may remind herself that the loved one was living with severe pain and had great faith in a
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better world to come. Although the woman may be able at times to convince herself of
her own happiness, she will be mostly aware of the loss that she has suffered and of her
own grief. Indeed, we would consider the case in which the woman consistently
maintained her happiness to be pathological; we would say that in the face of the
traumatic loss, the woman must be in extreme denial and is refusing to even consider the
loss that she has suffered. There is, however, ambiguity in this situation that allows the
woman to slide between these opposing construals. On the whole she may recognize her
grief and sadness at the loss that she and those around her have suffered. At times,
however, she can limit her attention to the long, happy life led by the deceased, the end of
her loved one’s pain, and the faith of the loved one in a world to come. This allows her
to temporarily justify her claim of being happy.
Why then do we say that this is a case of self-deception and not a moment in
which the woman becomes genuinely happy? I do, in fact, think that in some cases we
will want to say that the woman is truly happy in those moments. However, in most
cases, the woman will have justified her happiness just by changing the subject—by
limiting her attention to just a few aspects of the situation. Although she is able to make
this shift, it will still be her grief that will underlie her expressive behaviors, that will
dictate the themes around which her thoughts revolve, and that will determine her
behavioral tendencies regarding the overall situation. Indeed, if the woman is pressed I
suspect that she would be unable to maintain her limited perspective and would be forced
to recognize her overall construal of the situation as a loss and, correspondingly, of her
own grief.
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Moments of honest self-deception regarding one’s emotional state can have real
practical value from a psychological point of view. Allowing oneself moments of honest
self-deception can serve as a powerful coping mechanism. Ruminating consistently on
the loss that one has suffered will function to reinforce that state of grief and lead to an
inability to come to terms with one’s new reality. Moments of self-deception will enable
the individual to glimpse positive aspects of the situation and to begin to reconcile these
multiple construals, hopefully arriving at an overall construal of the situation that can
accept these various points of view simultaneously.
Honest self-deception is difficult to maintain while in the midst of an emotional
state, as in the case of the woman we have been considering. The case is quite different,
however, if we consider self-deception that occurs after the fact. Indeed, this sort of selfdeception is easy and frequent. After the fact self-deception is often used as a means of
maintaining self-esteem by placing a positive spin on a past emotional experience. A
salesman creates a complicated presentation for an important group of prospective
clients. At the meeting, he struggles to connect his laptop to the projector and is
eventually forced to fumble through his presentation without his visual aids. The
salesman blushes and stutters through his pitch and apologizes repeatedly for the
technical difficulties. Although his embarrassment was clear to anyone who witnessed
the event, the salesman later claims that throughout he was angry at the Information
Technologies Department for not making clear that he needed special cables. Through a
bit of after the fact self-deception, the salesman is able to preserve his self-image by
adopting a construal of the event that shifts blame for the event onto others.
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As in the case of the failed sales pitch, many examples of self-deception regarding
one's emotional state occur after the fact. After the emotional event has passed, the
individual reconsiders the situation and chooses a new label to describe his past
emotional state at that time—he was not embarrassed, he was angry. However, labels do
not have causal influence backwards through time. The behaviors that the salesman
exhibited during the disastrous sales pitch and the responses of those witnessing the sales
pitch were shaped by his embarrassment. Although the salesman might now describe
himself as angry this cannot change the fact that he was truly embarrassed at the time.
The woman who displays the full and complete picture of grief may at moments
be honestly self-deceiving when she claims to be happy. On the other hand, she may be
maintaining a deceptive emotional front—that is, she may recognize her grief but claim
in her verbal reports to be happy and attempt to manage her expressive behaviors in a
manner that does not belie her actual grief. Although honest self-deception is difficult to
maintain during the course of an emotional episode, a deceptive emotional front can be
maintained with much less difficulty, especially before a receptive audience.
As in the case of honest self-deception, there are motivations for deceptive
emotional fronts as well. The woman we have been considering may feel an obligation to
maintain a front of happiness to those around her—she may fear that she could become a
burden to those around her if she were to admit to them the depths of her grief. In
addition, allowing others to recognize her grief could bring to herself unwanted
attention—her front of happiness is a suggestion to others that she is fine and needs no
special attention. Indeed, she will likely admit her grief just to those from whom she
desires extra attention as she works through the grieving process.
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In much the same way that moments of honest self-deception can enable the
individual to deal with a difficult situation, a deceptive emotional front can support a sort
of group coping. The woman may think that she ought to adopt a more positive
emotional front in order to help others who are grieving to appreciate the positive aspects
of the loss. By drawing attention to these positive aspects, the group will be able to
escape the paralyzing, wholly negative construal of the event and ultimately move
towards a more suitable overall construal of the change.
Other examples reveal similar strategic motivations for self-deception and the
maintaining of deceptive emotional fronts. A soldier who is truly terrified of marching
onto the battlefield may claim to be gung-ho or bloodthirsty. The soldier’s gung-ho
emotional front serves a purpose in reinforcing group cohesion and ensuring that his
comrades continue to trust that he will perform under pressure. In the same way, the
solider will work to self-deceive in an effort to convince himself that he will be able to
perform his duties when required. In fact, the soldier may be able to truly convince
himself that he is bloodthirsty and not afraid. In this case, the soldier may be able to
have truly transformed his emotional state from fear to bloodthirst. By at first selfdeceiving and maintaining a deceptive emotional front, the soldier was able to truly
transform his emotional state.
In this section I have considered self-deception concerning emotional states and
the presentation of deceptive emotional fronts. Honest self-deception would involve a
case in which an individual claims to herself and to others that she is in one emotional
state while actually being in a different emotional state. In the case of deceptive
emotional fronts, the individual recognizes being in one emotional state, yet works to
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project to others that she is in some other emotional state. Honest self-deception,
common in cases of self-attributions made after the fact, will be less common and
fleeting while still in the grip of an emotional episode.
Although I call these practices “deceptive” there are virtues to each and each
plays an important and vital role in managing our emotional responses. Honest selfdeception in the midst of an emotional episode is a method of eventually transforming
one’s emotional state into a state that the individual believes would be preferable to one’s
current emotional state. In addition, self-deception after the fact can be used to maintain
self-esteem through an individual’s choosing to remember a choice of labels that puts the
situation in a more favorable light. There are virtues to deceptive emotional fronts as
well. An emotional front signals to others the way in which an individual wishes to be
treated by those around her. Claiming happiness while truly grieving is a means of
politely refusing unwanted attention. In the same way that self-deception can be used to
slowly transform one’s actual emotional state, an emotional front can be used to suggest
to others a particular construal of a situation. By projecting happiness, an individual can
influence the construals of other members of the group and help mediate what might
otherwise be a less balanced view of the emotional situation.
Episodes of self-deception and the maintaining of deceptive emotional fronts are
not necessarily cases of mislabeling. In each case, the individual's emotional state really
is the state which we would expect from what we know about the case. The woman who
has lost a loved one may temporarily claim to herself or to others that she is happy when
she is, in fact, sad. The salesman who, in retrospect, claims to have been angry really
was embarrassed at the time. The case of the soldier is more complicated. Through his
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claims to himself and others that he is gung-ho, he may have actually transformed his
state of fear into a new emotional state--he may now really be gung-ho. In each of these
cases the individual has some motivation that leads the individual to claim to themselves
or others that they are in a different emotional state from the emotional state that they are
actually in. I do not believe that these should be considered cases of mislabeling because
the individual's emotional state really is that state which we expect they are actually in-the woman really is sad and the salesman really was embarrassed. No error, I believe,
has occurred in the labeling process itself; rather, the peculiarities of these cases arise
when these individuals reflect on the labeling process itself. In the following sections I
will consider some ways in which the labeling process itself can be said to have really
“gone wrong”—that is, the ways in which the choice of a label might be considered
inappropriate. These will be the true cases of mislabeling.
Mislabeling as Improper Use of Emotional Labels
If we had adopted the causal attribution view of the labeling process, we would argue that
mislabeling was simply a matter of choosing a label that failed to accurately reflect the
cause of one’s state of arousal. If we had adopted the view of William James and the
peripheralists or that of Walter B. Cannon and the centralists, then there would be a fact
of the matter regarding your emotional state apart from the way in which it is labeled. On
the peripheralist view, features of your state of physiological arousal itself determine
your particular emotional state. On the centralist view, it is the activation of particular
neural structures that determines your particular emotional state. Mislabeling would then
be a matter of choosing a label that did not match your actual emotional state. I cannot
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offer a one-criterion account of what it is to mislabel because labeling is not a
straightforward matter of attempting to match up a label with some “objective” feature of
the emotion such as a causal history, a particular quality of “feel”, a pattern of arousal, or
activation of a particular neural circuit. Instead, my account will consist of a description
of various ways in which the choice of a label can be inappropriate.
A first type of mislabeling occurs when an individual employs a label in a manner
contrary to the conventionally defined meaning of that emotional label. Suppose that an
individual is watching news coverage of a rescue effort following a major earthquake in
Iran. As a young man is pulled from the rubble of a fallen building, the young woman
tells a friend that she is experiencing schadenfreude. The friend, aware that
schadenfreude is a malicious enjoyment of another’s misfortune, is confused and a bit
startled to hear her friend describe herself as such. Does her friend harbor some deep
hatred for Iranians that makes the aftermath of the earthquake enjoyable to her? The
claim is even more unusual in that the young woman has a sincere look of concern on her
face, watery eyes, and wrings her hands as she watches the rescue. What has gone wrong
in this case is that the young woman has misunderstood the meaning of schadenfreude—
instead of “a malicious enjoyment of another’s misfortune” she believes schadenfreude is
“happiness for a good aspect of a bad situation”. The young woman believes that
schadenfreude is an appropriate label for her state because she sees the rescue of the
young man being pulled from the rubble as a bright spot within the larger situation of the
deadly earthquake.
In a less extreme example, a young man might label a particular state of arousal as
anger without recognizing the implications of employing that label. For instance, he may
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not recognize that being angry implies that the object of that anger bears responsibility
for the perceived offense. In this case, the individual may continue to be angry even after
he learns that the object of his anger was not, in fact, responsible for the offense.
Children make this same error when they claim to be angry at inanimate objects.
In either of these examples, the individual could go on using these labels
incorrectly until they are faced with social interaction. The young woman’s friend
wonders why her other verbal behaviors and her non-verbal behaviors fail to match her
self-described state of schadenfreude. The young man who does not recognize that one
cannot be angry with someone who bears no responsibility for the perceived offense may
not recognize his error until it is forced on him—perhaps the object of his anger
confronts him on the issue and demands an explanation for why the young man is still
angry. A shared understanding of the emotion labels that are used within a community
smoothes social interactions within an emotional episode. When that shared
understanding breaks down we will find that the parties involved will need to arrive at
common understandings of the emotional labels in order to make sense of the emotional
situation. This is then a first way in which one can come to mislabel a state of arousal—
one can label based on a misunderstanding of the meaning of that label as it is accepted
within one’s linguistic community. The label is inappropriate because the implications
that the labeler intends are not the implications that would be inferred by a competent
member of that speaker’s linguistic community.
Some cases may appear to be examples of misunderstanding the meaning of a
label when, in fact, further explanation of the situation is all that is required. If a person
is being mugged and claims to be embarrassed we might think that the person has
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misunderstood the meaning of ‘embarrassed’. However, it may simply be that some
additional explanation is required to make sense of the appropriateness of this label
(perhaps the person was engaged in some illicit activity when the mugging occurred).
Mislabeling as Failure to Consider Relevant Features of Situations
A second type of mislabeling occurs when an individual overlooks some relevant feature
of her situation that ought to have been considered in determining an appropriate label.
One type of example would be those cases in which an individual chooses an emotional
label because she has failed to consider the possibility that a non-emotional label may be
more appropriate. Consider the case in which I become angry in response to a student
handing me a late paper. On arriving back at the office, I mention the episode to a
colleague who finds my response puzzling—I have not become angry when given a late
paper in the past. He mentions that maybe I need to cut back on the caffeine, and at this
point I recognize that the large amount of coffee I drank on a completely empty stomach
during my lecture may have been responsible for my stirred-up state. If I had recognized
this at the time, I would not have become angry but would have instead understood my
state as jittery or over-caffeinated.
Similarly, I might be brought to recognize that an already existing stirred-up state
led me to attribute to myself an emotion that was not sufficiently justified. For instance, I
may have become angry with the student handing me a late paper because of my already
present state of irritation about the unpleasant meeting for which I was in the process of
preparing. When I recognize that under normal conditions I would not have become
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emotional about the late paper, I may determine that my anger at the student was
inappropriate.
In another type of case, I might have failed to consider relevant features of the
situation itself that ought to have been considered important to my choice of labels.
Suppose that I have learned that I have been passed over for a promotion at work. I
become indignant about this situation because I believe that I am the most qualified
candidate. However, when my boss reminds me that I did not receive that promotion
because I am being considered for another more desirable promotion, I will recognize
that my indignation was inappropriate.
A second type of mislabeling, then, is a failure to take into account the range of
relevant information that the individual should have been expected to consider. This
relevant information may take the form of some aspect of the situation itself that has not
been appreciated or might take the form of a failure to recognize that a prior emotional
state or other state of arousal has led the individual to an emotional state that would not
have otherwise occurred or could not be considered justified on its own.
Strategic Mislabeling
I have argued that the choice of a particular label ought to be understood as a
judgment of appropriateness—a judgment that will take into account the features of one’s
immediate situation but will also be guided by, for instance, the practical or strategic
implications of choosing a particular label. Because the choice of a particular label will
play a role in guiding expressive and verbal behaviors and particular action tendencies,
the choice of a label has strategic implications that may further or may conflict with one’s
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self-interest. Recall the case of the department meeting in which you are told that you are
not competent to perform some task for the department. On hearing this statement from
your colleague, your physiological response is triggered immediately and a search begins
for the appropriate description of that state. The features of the situation narrow your
choice of labels considerably. Given, for instance, that this task is not one that you had
hoped to avoid anyway, a positively valenced label such as pride or hope will not be an
option. There is still, however, a range of labels that could be appropriate given just the
objective features of the situation—anger, embarrassment, disappointment, frustration,
jealousy directed at the person who is given the task, regret for not having proven oneself
worthy of your colleagues’ trust, or fear of future consequences that this lack of trust
might appear to signal. Likewise, there is a range of objects that those particular labels
may point towards—the colleague who made the statement, the department as a whole,
some segment of the department, or towards oneself.
Some of these potential labels will be better choices than others from a strategic
point of view. If you are approaching tenure, you may worry that becoming angry could
alienate members of the department on whose support you are relying. If you were to
become embarrassed, your colleagues could take this as an admission of your own
incompetence. Disappointment may suggest an unattractive defeatist attitude and
jealousy may come across as just pathetic. On the other hand, those same choices of
label might have positive implications as well: anger may encourage others to take your
side; embarrassment may signal that you recognize an area you need to improve upon;
and disappointment or jealousy may be taken to reflect the great importance you place on
your work. The details of the situation and the relationships among you and your
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colleagues will suggest some strategies as stronger or weaker than others. Choosing a
label which undermines one’s own self-interests constitutes a type of mislabeling:
strategic mislabeling.
Patterns in an individual’s choices of labels over time will perhaps be more
important than the choice of labels in one particular instance from a strategic point of
view. The individual who employs the label anger whenever possible is likely to alienate
those around her, while consistently refusing to become angry and instead choosing
frustration may result in allowing others to “walk all over her”. A tendency to "over-use"
particular emotions can come to be seen by others as an ingrained personality flaw—the
angry person as bitter or overly sensitive; the fearful person as timid or weak; or the
jealous person as insecure or petty. The perception of these patterns in labeling will play
important roles in the forming of relationships and will constitute a context through
which the individuals’ later judgments will be considered—the consistently angry person
will alienate others and ultimately find that others are unmoved when she claims to have
been wronged. Persons disposed towards envy will negatively impact their relationships
with those around them who will be forced to either discount that envy or adopt a
corresponding guilt for possessing that which is envied.
This third type of mislabeling can then be understood as the choosing of a label
that conflicts with one’s self-interest. This might occur within the context of just one
episode in which one’s emotional response is particularly crucial as in the case of the
department meeting. This may also occur in a pattern of labeling across episodes, as in
the individual who tends too strongly towards considering themselves angry, thus having
a negative impact on their relationships with others.
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Pathological Mislabeling
My discussion of strategic mislabeling focused on the implications of the choice of a
particular label on practical concerns such as losing a job or adversely affecting one’s
relationships with others. Another type of mislabeling might be identified as a subset of
strategic mislabeling but can be differentiated by its inner-directed focus. This
mislabeling involves choices of labels that result in a psychologically unhealthy view of
the world or of oneself.
Consider an individual who is overly prone to episodes of guilt. Watching news
coverage of a terrible earthquake in Iran, this person understands her affective response
as guilt. She recognizes that she bears no responsibility for the earthquake yet labels her
state as guilt, perhaps with some explanation referring to her own undeserved life of
relative safety and comfort. When mistakes are made in the workplace she may attribute
responsibility to herself that others would not see as reasonable—perhaps the mistake
was not made on her shift but she comes to think that if she had left a more detailed
instructions for the later shift that the problem could have been avoided. For the
perpetually guilty person, the world becomes an accusing place where that individual
takes herself, through her guilt, to be responsible for even those unfortunate events that
were clearly not within her control. The guilty person puts herself through unnecessarily
unpleasant episodes. More troubling, however, will be the effect on that person’s ability
to act within the world—the fear of her actions or failures to act resulting in some
unfortunate event can lead her to withdraw from the world and refuse responsibility in
order to minimize the possibility of being responsible for unfortunate events in the future.
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The chronically angry person faces similar traps. Any car that changes into her
lane has “cut her off”, she is quick to pass around blame for situations that turn out
differently from how she had hoped, and quickly construes any attempts at constructive
criticism as personal affronts. The angry person becomes the victim of a world that is
focused on thwarting her ends and belittling her concerns. The worldview of the angry
person feeds back on itself in the manner of a self-fulfilling prophecy—the angry
person’s focus on identifying potential offenses results in more and more offenses being
identified. The episodes of anger can themselves be pleasant in that the angry person
claims for herself the moral high ground and at the same time absolves herself of any
responsibility regarding the event by shifting it towards the object of her anger. At the
same time, however, the angry person strains relationships by placing herself at odds with
those around her. She reinforces her own role as that of a victim and loses a sense of
autonomy as she assigns responsibility for her current position and potential fates to those
whom she believes would do her harm.
This fourth type of mislabeling I call pathological mislabeling—cases in which
the choice of a label or a pattern of labels chosen results in a needlessly unhealthy
psychological state. This sort of mislabeling will rarely be identifiable through
consideration of just one emotional episode. Rather, it will be evident when patterns of
labeling over time are considered, and it can be seen that a pathological view of the self
or of the world has begun to develop as a result.
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Mislabeling as Ethical Violation
A fifth and final type of mislabeling I will discuss occurs when the use of a particular
label itself carries with it implications that constitute violations of cultural or ethical
norms. Consider the psychology student who has been told to expect mildly painful
electric shocks as part of the experiment in which she is participating for extra credit. A
student may consider herself to be anxious or concerned, rather than angry or fearful if
she believes that these stronger emotions would be inappropriate in the presence of an
authority figure—the white-coated psychology professor. Had the student become angry
with the experimenter, we might say that she had mislabeled her state on the basis of the
violation of a cultural norm.
This episode could be viewed from a different perspective in which the student
had no qualms about becoming angry or fearful in the presence of an authority figure, but
instead had concerns over potential consequences of applying particular labels that could
lead to behavior inappropriate from an ethical point of view. Knowing that only a small
number of students were given the opportunity for the extra credit, the student may feel
compelled to force herself to go through with the experiment. To this end, she may label
her state as anxiety, rather than anger or fear if the choice of those labels might endanger
her continued participation in the experiment. Had she allowed herself to become angry
or fearful and not completed the experiment, that available extra credit that could have
gone to someone else in the class would have been squandered—a clear ethical violation
for a freshman ‘Introduction to Psychology’ student. This type of mislabeling can be
understood as the choosing of a label that itself violates a cultural or ethical norm, or will
likely lead to consequences that violate a cultural or ethical norm.
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The Account of Mislabeling
The account of mislabeling I have offered above has taken the form of a taxonomy of
types of mislabeling: (1) failure to properly understand the conventionally defined
conditions that make the use of a label appropriate, (2) failure to take into account
relevant features of one's situation, (3) choice of a label which is contrary to one's selfinterest, (4) choice of a label which leads to a pathological view of the self or of the
world, and (5) choice of a label which itself constitutes an ethical violation or threatens to
lead to behavior which would constitute an ethical violation. This taxonomy is not
necessarily exhaustive. In addition, I have distinguished these cases of mislabeling from
cases of self-deception and the presentation of deceptive emotional fronts. The
motivation for the development of this broad account is the need to demonstrate that the
labeling process centered account of the emotions that I have been developing can make
sense of cases in which we are inclined to say that an error has occurred in the labeling
process.
I began this chapter reviewing the reasons why there is no simple account of
mislabeling available. In Chapter Three, I argued that peripheralist theories such as those
of William James (1884a) and Paul Griffiths (1997) have failed to demonstrate that
emotions, even those identified as basic emotions, can be identified with any particular
states of physiological arousal. Thus, we cannot look at an individual’s physiological
state and determine whether they have chosen a “correct” label or not. We find a similar
situation in the case of the centralist theories of Walter B. Cannon (1929) and Joseph
LeDoux (1996). I argued in Chapter Three that these theories have failed to find
203
particular neural circuits that can be identified with particular emotions. Thus, again, we
cannot look into the individual and objectively determine her emotional state.
We also cannot simply look at the objective features of an individual’s situation
and determine a single “correct” label for her emotional state. The very same objective
circumstances will always allow for a variety of appropriate labels that might be chosen
to describe one’s state. Spying one’s beloved in the arms of a rival constitutes a
paradigm case for a response of jealousy but one could be equally justified in describing
one’s response as anger, or fear, or sadness, or guilt or perhaps even relief. As discussed
above, the objective features of a situation will constrain the range of labels that could be
considered appropriate, and in a case such as relief in response to seeing one’s beloved in
the arms of a rival we may require some additional explanation (that he has finally
confirmed his fears and can now go on with his life).
I also argued against the causal attribution interpretation of the labeling process,
which might have promised a straightforward account of identifying cases of
mislabeling—mislabeling would be the choice of a label that does not reflect the actual
etiology of one’s state of arousal. As argued above, however, the causal attribution
interpretation is unacceptable and would still fall victim to the systematic ambiguities of
emotional situations.
Having eliminated these various possible means of picking out a single label as
“correct”, it has been necessary to develop a less tidy account of mislabeling. The
account that I have presented separates cases of mislabeling from other sorts of
phenomena such as self-deception concerning emotional state and the presentation of
deceptive emotional fronts. The genuine cases of mislabeling are those in which the
204
choice is made of a label that is not appropriate. The complexity of the account reflects
the complexity of a judgment of appropriateness as I have described those judgments in
Chapter Five.
205
Conclusion
Emotion theory, in recent years, has become a model of successful interdisciplinary
research. Psychologists, neuroscientists, anthropologists, biologists, philosophers,
sociologists and even historians have come together to form a body of emotion theorists
who share ideas and actually read one another’s work. This is a wonderful state of
affairs. However, the development of theories of the emotions has been somewhat
haphazard. Anthropologists tend to identify emotions with the adopting of particular
social roles; neuroscientists tend to identify emotions with particular states of neural
activation; biologists tend to identify emotions with states of physiological arousal;
philosophers tend to identify emotions with particular sets of propositional attitudes.
I believe that Schachter’s theory of the emotions is well-suited as a framework for
organizing the enormous amount of research currently being generated by emotion
theorists. My criticisms of other theories currently on offer has focused on the same
206
claim that Schachter made forty years ago—that we ought to resist the temptation to
identify some particular aspect of emotional episodes with the emotion itself. To do so is
to lose sight of the complex interactions that obtain among the various components
involved in emotional responses. Schachter recommends an organized pluralism
regarding emotion theory. Instead of focusing on just one aspect of the emotion, to the
detriment of all other aspects, Schachter hopes to “carve nature at the joints” and allow
research from all fields involved in emotion theory to fall into place.
For the last twenty years, the Schachter and Singer experiment has been regarded
mostly as an historical artifact, and Schachter’s theory has been considered untenable. In
this project I believe that I have shown that Schachter’s theory is a viable theory of the
emotions. I have begun to marshal support for the theory by presenting empirical
evidence for many of its claims, by using the theory to solve problems currently facing
emotion theory, and by showing that it can be an effective platform from which other
theories of the emotions can be effectively criticized. In addition, I have developed a
reasonable account of Schachter and Singer’s 1962 experiment. While we can only draw
limited conclusions from the experiment itself, I believe it is a testament to the
underlying strength of Schachter’s theory that the experiment has endured as an
important event in the history of emotion theory.
207
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