Describe the Schachter-Singer experiment and how that supports the cognitive appraisal theory of emotion

What will be an ideal response?

Schachter and Singer first injected their subjects with a hormone, epinephrine (adrenaline), which caused physiological arousal, such as increased heart rate and blood pressure. However, subjects were told that the injections were vitamins and were not told that they would experience physiological arousal. After the injections, subjects were placed in different situations, a happy one or an angry one. Those subjects in the happy situation often reported feeling happy, and their observable behaviors were smiles. However, those in the angry situation often reported feeling angry, and their observable behaviors were angry facial expressions.

Schachter and Singer explained that subjects did not know that their physiological arousal was caused by hormone injections, and they looked around for other causes in their environment. Subjects interpreted environmental cues, such as being in a happy or angry situation, as the cause of their arousal and thus reported feeling happy or angry. The Schachter-Singer cognitive theory was the first to show that cognitive factors, such as your interpretation of events, could influence emotional feelings.