Our emotions are internal forces that continuously affect our behavior and perception, but whose exact functioning has been a great unknown throughout history. This has generated that many researchers have tried to offer an explanation at a scientific level of why and when an emotion arises, existing a great variety of theories about it.

One of them is the one that Stanley Schachter made together with Jerome Singer, being the first one an important psychologist specialized in social psychology. In order to better understand his work, it may be useful to know a little more about the life of this author. That is why throughout this article we are going to see a short biography of Stanley Schachter .

The Life of Stanley Schachter: A Biography

Stanley Schachter was born on April 15, 1922 in Flushing, New York. Coming from a family of Jewish Romanian origin, he was the son of Nathan Schacter and Anna Fruchter. Since his childhood he was curious and capable, eager to learn and when he was a little older he expressed the desire to study at the university.

Education and war

After finishing his high school education, young Schachter proceeded to enroll in Yale University, where he studied art history. He graduated from that university in 1942 and after completing his studies he decided to pursue a master’s degree in psychology , which seemed to him to be closer to his interests and to be able to work on social issues. In this sense he was deeply influenced by Clark Hull and his theory of learning. He obtained his master’s degree in 1944.

At that time, World War II was in full swing, and after completing his Master’s degree Schachter joined the army, where he would be promoted to sergeant and where his main role would be to work on studying the visual problems of pilots in the biophysics division of the aeromedical laboratory. His military service ended two years later, in 1946.

PhD

Later that same year, the American psychologist enrolled to do a research doctorate at MIT with Kurt Lewin , intending to focus on the theories related to social psychology and especially group behaviour within the Research Center for Group Dynamics. There he would meet those who would end up being great authors, such as Festinger, but unfortunately only a year later his teacher died. Lewin’s death caused the center to close the project and all the students had to look for another center.

After some time searching, Schachter was finally accepted to continue his training within the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. There he would work again with Festinger, who in fact became his mentor , and together with him studied social influence and human communication.

He completed his doctorate in 1949, with a thesis on the treatment of divergent majority opinion by group members.

Start of working life

Based on his work during his doctorate, the University of Minnesota offered him his first job as an assistant professor in the department of social relations research . He would gradually move up the ladder, becoming an associate professor in 1954 and a full professor in 1958.

During this period he continued his research on group relations and behaviour and produced various works on social communication and pressure within groups. He would also end up writing with Festinger and Riecken the publication “When Prophecy Fails”, which studied the case of a group with apocalyptic beliefs that despite evidence to the contrary maintained their beliefs regarding the imminent destruction of the world. This made the author even more interested in the power of social influence , something that made him investigate even more and produce various publications, which earned him interesting prizes and prestige. He would remain in his post for a total of twelve years.

However, in 1961 he was hired by Columbia University as a professor of psychology. That same year he married Sophia Duckworth , with whom he would end up having a child in 1969. He would occupy the position until 1992. It was during this period that he would make some of his most outstanding contributions.

Major research

He first worked on elements such as the effects of birth order on siblings or the reaction and sensitivity of the obese population to food stimuli (they eat more if food can be easily obtained). He was also interested in physiological reactions to stimuli, and gradually an interest was born in understanding and investigating the functioning and origin of emotions and the physical reactions that accompany them. Other relevant investigations would be those related to substances , especially in the case of habituation and dependence on tobacco.

But without a doubt his best known contribution is the one he made in the late sixties, when he would come into contact and start collaborating with Jerome Singer and other authors with the aim of finding out how we experience emotions.

In what would become the greatest and best known work of both authors, Singer and Schachter would come to the conclusion that emotion is the result of the presence of an internal mental activation at a physiological level and a series of processes with which we try to name and recognize the activation in question.

For these authors the emotion felt would come after the physiological reaction, that is to say, first the body presents activation and then our mind gives that activation a meaning or sense based on the situation and previous experience. This implies that the emotion is nothing more than the labeling at the conscious level of the interpretation of our physical and mental activity.

Last years and death

Schachter continued in his position and conducting various investigations for the rest of his life until 1992. At that time, his relationship with the University of Minnesota would cease. A few years later the author discovered that he was suffering from a malignant tumour: colon cancer . Death came to Schachter on June 7, 1997, when the cancer killed him in his home in New York.

Schachter’s legacy is great. While he is probably not one of the most well-known names in the population, he is among some of the most recognized authors, especially at the level of studies on emotions. In addition, the diversity of his research makes him one of the forerunners of health psychology.

Bibliographic references:

  • Nisbett, R.E. (2000). Stanley Schachter 1922-1997. Biographical Memoirs, 78. National Academy of Sciences. The National Academy Press. Washington, D.C.