EPINEPHRINE, CHLORPROMAZINE, AND AMUSEMENT1

In their study of cognitive and physiological determinants of emotional states, Schachter and Singer (1962) have demonstrated that cognitive processes play a major role in the development of emotional states. Given a common state of physiological arousal, sub-jects can be readily induced into states of euphoria or of anger by means of cognitive manipulations. To what extent the state of physiological arousal is a necessary com-ponent of an emotional experience is not, however, completely clear in that study. The technique employed by Schachter and Singer (1962) to produce a state of phys-iological arousal was simply the injection of the sympathomimetic amine, epinephrine. With slight exceptions, this agent provokes a pattern of physiological activation which is a virtual replica of the state produced by active discharge of the sympathetic nervous system. In experimental situations designed to make subjects euphoric, those subjects who received injections of epinephrine were, on a variety of indices, somewhat more euphoric than subjects who received a placebo injec-tion. Similarly, in situations designed to make subjects angry and irritated, those who re-ceived epinephrine were somewhat angrier than subjects who received placebo. In both sets of conditions, however, these differences between epinephrine and placebo subjects were significant, at best, at borderline levels of statistical significance. Assuming, for the moment, that physiolog-ical arousal is a necessary component of emo-tional states, one of the factors that might 1 This experiment is part of a program of research on cognitive and physiological determinants of emo-tional state which is being conducted at the De