Psychology: Cognitive Factors in Emotion

Cognitive Factors in Emotion

Other reasearchers, as well as Schachter and Singer, have constructed attribution theories of emotion (concerning the using of external clues to identify a particular emotion). For example, in a study by Stuart Valins, as male subjects were shown pictures of seminude females, they heard amplified heartbeats that they were told were theirs (although they were not) and that varied in rate. The subjects attributed their varying heart rates to the varying pictures they were shown and picked pictures they believed produced their most rapid heart rate as being the most attractive. (This approach has been applied in some therapeutic treatments of people suffering from delusions.)