The Construction of Emotion
In 1962, two scientists, Stanley Schachter and Jerry Singer did an experiment at Columbia University that would be illegal today. It would be illegal because the researchers deceived the participants. In the study, volunteers were told that they were receiving vitamin shots to see if it would affect their eyesight, but the researchers had other plans. Instead of giving the participants vitamins, they really gave them shots of adrenaline.
Some of the subjects were told that the vitamin injections would cause physical side effects like tremors, palpitations, and flushing, while others were not informed of any adverse effects. Regardless, the shots caused all the participants to experience strong physiological reactions. After being injected, the volunteers were put in contact with stooges. “Stooge,” also known as “confederate,” is a research term for an actor—someone who pretends to be a test subject but really works for the researchers to elicit a response from the real participants. In this case, some of the stooges pretended to be exceedingly happy while others overly angry. The subjects who were informed about the side effects of the shot blamed their physical sensations, such as a racing heart, on the so-called vitamins. The subjects who were not informed, however, relied on their environment to make sense of what they were feeling. Those who were with a happy stooge reported being overjoyed, while those with an angry stooge reported feeling enraged. This is a classic example of the human mind’s tendency to fabricate explanations for what is taking place in the moment.
The experiment led to what is called the two-factor theory of emotion, also known as the Schachter-Singer theory. This theory suggests that an emotion is made up of two things: thought and physical sensation. Or we could say: an emotion is a sensation with a story attached to it. However, Schachter and Singer left out an important factor—the stooges, which were the external stimuli that triggered the internal thoughts and sensations. CA proposes the addition of a third factor, conceptualizing emotion instead as a combination of thought, sensation, and external stimuli.
Here's an example: Imagine you’re cut off in traffic (external stimuli), and that leads you to experience an emotion—anger. In this case, you notice tightness in your chest. Maybe your face feels hot and your jaw tenses (sensation). Along with these sensations, you notice thoughts arising about chasing the guy down and doing or saying something that you might not be proud of once you’ve calmed down.
As the external event activates thoughts and sensations, emotion is formed. However, humans don’t always require an external stimulus to construct an emotion. After all, how many times have you been in an environment that is completely safe and stable, but you’re a nervous wreck? In those moments your body is reacting to what you see and hear in your mind instead of what is happening in the environment. As far as I know, humans are the only species that does this because we are the only species that can think about something that’s not happening in the moment (past, future, or fantasy). Therefore, the two necessary ingredients for an emotion are thoughts and sensations. Without a sensation, a thought is nothing more than a thought. Likewise, without a thought, a sensation is just a sensation. It takes both working in concert to experience an emotion, and as the two factors collide, they fuel each other, which perpetuates emotions much longer than is needed.
Thoughts of the guy who cut you off lead to sensation that then causes more thoughts, that cause more sensation, that causes more thought. It’s a loop—sensation, thought, sensation, thought, sensation, thought, and so on—an emotional cycle that some people often struggle to stop.
Schachter and Singer’s experiment was one of the earliest inquiries that led to what is referred to today as the theory of constructed emotion. The theory of constructed emotion was developed by Lisa Feldman Barrett. According to her theory, emotions are not hardwired, automatic reactions that are triggered by external factors, which is the classical understanding of emotions. Instead, her perspective suggests that emotions are more flexible and context-dependent. The theory proposes that emotions are actively constructed by the nervous system based on various factors such as internal and external sensory input, past experiences, cultural norms, and cognitive interpretations. Therefore, emotions are not pre-existing entities or circuits that are waiting to be triggered inside a person. Barrett states, “Emotions are constructions of the world, not reactions to it.”
Inspired by Barrett, Constructed Awareness understands emotions as instances that are constructed by three “building blocks”: thoughts, sensations, and (sometimes) external stimuli. This way of conceptualizing the construction of emotion is a powerful tool for self-understanding because it takes some of the guesswork out of exploring your emotional experience. If you think about it, aren’t thoughts, sensations, and external cues all you’ve ever experienced?
Emotions are hard to understand because they are hard to define or identify. When you’re afraid, you can feel sensations in your body and notice thoughts in your mind. You may be able to identify something in the environment that is influencing the instance of emotion. But where is fear? When you look closer, you see that what you would label as “fear” isn’t something that can be found in reality. There is no fear. There are only sensations, thoughts, external stimuli, and a label “fear” that the mind adds to describe the collection of those parts.
The human mind is gifted at summarizing things that are made of several parts into one word. A good example is a storm. A storm consists of many things—lightning, wind, rain, thunder—but where is “storm?” You can’t put your finger on it. To understand a storm, you must understand the tangible factors that make it up. The same goes for emotions. In addition to naming the emotions, attention should be on observing the parts that constitute them: thoughts, sensations, and external stimuli. As you gain a deeper understanding of these building blocks, you will naturally learn more about the intricate construction of emotions.