Stanley Schachter

Stanley Schachter (April 15, 1922 – June 7, 1997) was an American social psychologist, who is perhaps best known for his development of the two factor theory of emotion in 1962 along with Jerome E. Singer. In his theory he states that emotions have two ingredients: physiological arousal and a cognitive label. A person's experience of an emotion stems from the mental awareness of the body's physical arousal and the explanation one attaches to this arousal. Schachter also studied and published a large number of works on the subjects of obesity, group dynamics, birth order and smoking. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Schachter as the seventh most cited psychologist of the 20th century.

Main contributions：
①Deviation, rejection, and communication (1951)
Schachter conducted an experiment that tested the social pressures that a person may feel to conform to fit the cohesiveness, match the opinions of the group, and significance of other group members. Schachter recognized the importance of communication and rejection among a group and coordinated these variables along with the constructs of the experiment. Results from Schachter's experiments are key components to studying interpersonal communication and group dynamics.

②Obesity and eating (1968)
Schachter conducted many experiments that tested the internal and external cues of hunger with obese individuals. One experiment described in this publication was in relation to stress. This experiment involved two independent variables; and fullness. To manipulate stress a painful or non-painful shock manipulation was conducted on obese individuals and non-obese individuals. Participants were informed of a secondary study that would be conducted of taste-testing crackers. The dependent variable of the experiment was the amount of crackers consumed. Schachter concluded based on his findings that there are physiological responses (internal cues) that tell you not to eat when stressed. In the study, non-obese people ate less when stressed. This was compared to obese individuals that tend to be less sensitive to these internal cues and more sensitive to external cues such as food advertisements and periods of time dedicated to eating.


Selected works by Stanley Schachter：
Schachter, S (1950) With L. Festinger and K. Back. Social Pressures in Informal Groups. New York: Harpers.
Schachter, S (1956) With L. Festinger and H. Riecken. When Prophecy Fails. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Schachter, S (1959) The Psychology of Affiliation. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Schachter, S (1971). Emotion, Obesity and Crime. New York: Academic.
Schachter, S & Rodin, J. (1974). Obese Humans and Rats. Hillsdale, NJ.: Erlbaum.

Reference
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Schachter