Otniel E. Dror

Historian of medicine/science who supplies the wiki’s historiographical layer. Where the other authors argue about emotion, Dror argues about the history of the theories — how a social-influence research program became read as a cognitive-physiological one. See dror-2017-two-factors and origins-of-two-factor-theory.

Method and sources

Fine-grained close reading of well-worn texts (Schachter & Singer 1962; Schachter’s Psychology of Affiliation 1959; Wrightsman 1960) plus unpublished archival materials (Schachter–Solomon correspondence, the original reviewed manuscript) and interviews with Ladd Wheeler, Richard Nisbett, and Lee Ross.

Central theses

1. The two-factor theory enacted Schachter’s prior social-influence/affiliation model; the “cognitive” element served to extend Festinger’s social-comparison theory to emotions.
2. The James–Lange framing was retrofitted (at reviewer request); the theory’s real novelty was making sympathetic arousal constitutive of every emotion — the endpoint of a long “adrenalizing” of the emotions that overrode Cannon’s strong/soft distinction. See walter-cannon, stanley-schachter.