A Study on Emotional Misattribution Stanford University, 2011 Nathan Suh, I-Shen Wu, Varun Jain, Jai Padmakumar

Background: Emotion and Misattribution Schachter-Singer 2 Factor Theory; Subjective experience (emotion) consists of both physiological arousal and a cognitive label Dutton and Arons Shaky Bridge Study: Dutton and Aron had an attractive female experimenter give participants a survey and the womans phone number after crossing either a shaky bridge (increasing the participants arousal) or a stable bridge. The men who crossed the shaky bridge were much more likely to call the female experimenter. Dutton and Aron concluded that the higher call rates were due to misattribution of arousal. Study Design When male subjects are asked to rate the attractiveness of an attractive woman before and after playing basketball, we expect their perception of attractiveness to be higher after playing basketball, consistent with Dutton and Arons study. We wanted to extend Dutton and Arons study to the perception of unattractiveness. Subjects are asked to rate the attractiveness of an unattractive woman before and after playing basketball. When an individual has no immediate explanation for his state of physiological arousal (intense basketball game), he will search for a cognitive label (attractive/unattractive model) to determine his emotional state or subjective experience. Procedures/Data/Observations The participants (45) were asked to rate the attractiveness of two female models (one attractive and the other unattractive) on a scale from 1 to 10. (Attractiveness ratings were objectified by the website www.hotornot.com) Participants were divided into two groups. Group 1/Control Group tested before playing a complete basketball game (average physiological arousal) and Group 2/Experimental Group tested after playing a complete basketball game (increased physiological arousal). Conclusions/Applications The attractiveness ratings for the attractive model increased 8.4%, consistent with the Dutton and Aron study. Interestingly, the attractiveness ratings for the unattractive model also increased, by 17.4%. The increase in the attractiveness ratings for the unattractive model went up with arousal, suggesting that physiological arousal causes a positive reaction towards all stimuli, including the perception of increased attractiveness. Discussion One weakness of this study was the small number of participants. I would like to repeat the study using more subjects to verify that these findings are statistically significant. Despite the small number of participants, the attractiveness ratings for the unattractive model increased by more than twofold, surprisingly. This is a personally useful finding perhaps I should wait for a girl to complete a full-length basketball game before I ask her out on a date.