Stanley Schachter: biography of this psychologist and researcher

Our emotions are internal forces that continuously affect our behavior and perception, but whose exact functioning has been largely unknown throughout history. This has generated that many researchers have tried to offer a scientific explanation of why and when an emotion arises, there being a wide variety of theories in this regard.

One of them is the one that Stanley Schachter did together with Jerome Singer, the first of them being an important psychologist specializing 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.

• Related article: "History of Psychology: authors and main theories"

The Life of Stanley Schachter: A Biography

Stanley Schachter was born on April 15, 1922 in Flushing, New York. Coming from a family of Romanian Jews, 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, expressing the desire to study at the university.

Academic training and war

Once he finished his secondary education, the young Schachter proceeded to enroll at Yale University, entering to study art history. He graduated in said career in 1942 and after finishing it He made the decision to also do a master's degree in psychology apparently closer to his interests and to be able to work on social problems. In this sense he was deeply influenced by Clark Hull and his learning theory. He got his master's degree in 1944.

At that time the Second World War was in full swing, and after he finished his master's degree Schachter he enlisted in the army, where he would go on to 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 enrolled for a research doctorate at MIT alongside Kurt Lewin, pretending to focus on theories related to social psychology and especially to the behavior of groups 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 passed away. Lewin's death caused the center to close the project and all the students had to find 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 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.

• You may be interested in: "Kurt Lewin and the Field Theory: the birth of social psychology"

Start of working life

Based on his Ph.D. work, the University of Minnesota he offered her her 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 1954 and a full professor in 1958.

At this time he continued his research regarding the relationships and behavior of groups and developing 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", in which the case of a group with apocalyptic beliefs that despite the 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 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 son in 1969. He would hold the position until 1992. It would be during this period that he would make some of his most outstanding contributions.

great investigations

In the first place, he worked on elements such as the effects of the order of birth on siblings or the reaction and sensitivity of the obese population towards food stimuli (they eat more if the food can be obtained with ease). He also became interested in physiological reactions to stimuli, and little by little an interest in understand and investigate the functioning and origin of emotions and the physical reactions that accompany. 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, at which time he would enter in contact and would begin to collaborate with Jerome Singer and other authors with the aim of finding out how we experience the emotions.

In what would become the largest 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 the 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 experience previous. This implies that emotion is nothing more than the conscious labeling of the interpretation of our physical and mental activity.

Last years and death

Schachter continued in his position and doing various research for the rest of his life until 1992. At that time he would cease his relationship with the University of Minnesota. 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 New York home.

Schachter's legacy is great. Although among the population it is probably not one of the best-known names, the truth is that it is he finds among some of the most recognized authors especially at the level of study on the emotions. In addition, the diversity of his research suggests that he is 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.