Stanley Schachter: Biography Of This Psychologist And Researcher
Our emotions are internal forces that continually affect our behavior and perception, but whose exact functioning has been largely unknown throughout history. This has led many researchers to try to offer a scientific explanation of why and when an emotion arises, with a wide variety of theories in this regard.
One of them is what Stanley Schachter did together with Jerome Singer, the first of them being an important psychologist specialized in social psychology. In order to better understand his work, it may be useful to know a little more about this author’s life. That is why throughout this article we are going to see a short biography of Stanley Schachter
Stanley Schachter was born on April 15, 1922 in Flushing, New York. Coming from a family of Jews of Romanian origin, he was the son of Nathan Schacter and Anna Fruchter. Since childhood he was curious and capable, eager to learn and when he was a little older he expressed the desire to study at university.
Academic training and war
Once he finished his secondary education, the young Schachter proceeded to enroll at Yale University, beginning to study art history. He graduated in said career in 1942 and after finishing it He made the decision to also complete a master’s degree in psychology as it seems closer to their interests and being able to work on social problems. In this sense he was deeply influenced by Clark Hull and his learning theory. He earned his master’s degree in 1944.
At that time the Second World War was in full swing, and once Schachter had completed his master’s degree He enlisted in the army, where he would be promoted to sergeant and in which his main role would be to work studying the visual problems of pilots in the biophysics division of the aeromedical laboratory. His military service ended two years later, in 1946.
Doctorate
Later and during the same year the American psychologist He signed up to do a research doctorate at MIT with Kurt Lewin, aiming to focus on theories related to social psychology and especially group behavior within the Research Center for Group Dynamics. There he would meet those who would end up being great authors, like Festinger, but unfortunately only a year later his teacher died. Lewin’s death caused the center to close the project and all students had to look for another center.
After some time searching, Schachter was finally accepted to continue his training at the Institute for Social Research, at the University of Michigan. There he would work again with Festinger, who in fact became his mentor and with him he studied social influence and human communication.
He finished his doctorate in 1949, with a thesis referring to the treatment provided by the members of a group to the existence of divergences with respect to the majority opinion.
Beginning of working life
Based on his work during his Ph.D., the University of Minnesota offered him his first job as an assistant professor in the social relations research department Little by little he would rise through the ranks, becoming an associate professor in ’54 and a full professor in 1958.
At this time he continued his research regarding the relationships and behavior of groups and produced different works regarding social communication and pressure within groups. He would also end up writing, together 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 awards and prestige. He would remain in his position 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 son in 1969. He would hold the position until 1992. It would be during this period that he would make some of his most notable contributions.
Great investigations
Firstly, he worked on elements such as the effects of birth order on siblings or the reaction and sensitivity of the obese population towards food stimuli (they eat more if the food can be obtained easily). He also became interested in physiological reactions to stimuli, and little by little an interest in understanding and investigating the functioning and origin of emotions and the physical reactions that accompany them was born. Other relevant investigations would be those linked 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 begin to collaborate with Jerome Singer and other authors with the aim of finding out how we experience emotions.
In what would become the largest and best-known work of both authors, Singer and Schachter would conclude 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, first the body presents activation and then our mind gives said activation a meaning or sense based on the situation and previous experience. This implies that emotion is nothing more than the labeling at a conscious level of the interpretation of our physical and mental activity.
Last years and death
Schachter continued in his position and conducting various research 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 tumor: colon cancer Death came to Schachter on June 7, 1997, when cancer claimed him at his home in New York.
Schachter’s legacy is great. Although among the population he is probably not one of the best-known names, the truth is that he is among some of the most recognized authors, especially at the level of study of emotions. Furthermore, the diversity of his research suggests that he is one of the precursors of health psychology.
