Schachter and Singer (1962) evaluative essay

In 1962 two American psychologists Stanley Schachter and Jerome

Singer came up with the two factor theory. This theory states that
emotion is a result of two things, physiological arousal and cognitive
label. According to the theory, when an emotion is felt, a physiological
arousal occurs and the person uses the immediate environment to
search for emotional cues to label the physiological arousal.

The study had a high level of control as it was conducted in a lab. This
means that there are controls over any extraneous variables which
results in the experiment being standardised and this increases
reliability. Since the participants didnt know that they were being
watched by the researchers demand of characteristics was low which
increases validity.
However, the experiment lacked ecological validity as it was conducted
in an artificial setting, in addition the researchers induced emotions into
the participants by provoking them into state of arousal. The study will
be difficult to generalise to the real world especially the female
population as it was conducted in an artificial setting with only males.

Self report questionnaires were used to obtain information from the

participants, the participants were more likely to reveal truthful
information, however rather than giving truthful answers the participants
could have given socially acceptable ones to look good and this lowers
validity.
Since there were two observers watching the experiment and recording
the results at the same time this increases inter observer reliability
however the observers could have been subjective when analyzing the
information.

Although there was a large sample used for the experiment it was
gender bias as only males took part in the experiment. As a
consequence the results of the study wont be able to be generalised to
females and most of the population since the participants are most
likely to be similar as they all volunteered to take part in the study.

Throughout the study there were many ethical issues that came up
such as deception which lowers the demand of characteristics as the
participants did not know the real aim of the study. However, deception
can cause distress to the participants. The participants were also
deceived by the stooge who pretended to be a participant. However,
after the study was over the researchers debriefed the participants and
explained the necessity of the deception. The aim of the debriefing is
not just to provide information, but to help the participant leave the
experimental situation in a similar frame of mind as when they entered.
Also the results from the research are kept confidential.
In spite of all the issues that came up throughout the study before the
study the researcher asked the participants for their informed consent
which an given the right to withdraw. The participants were also
protected from any harm as a physician gave them their injection, the
participants health records were also checked to see if they would be
able to take part I the study without any long term damage.