In psychology, misattribution of arousal is the process whereby people make a mistake in assuming what is causing them to feel aroused. For example, when actually experiencing physiological responses related to fear, people mislabel those responses as romantic arousal. The reason physiological symptoms may be attributed to incorrect stimuli is because many stimuli have similar physiological symptoms such as increased blood pressure or shortness of breath.
One of the initial studies looking into this phenomenon conducted by Schachter and Singer (1962)[1] was based on the idea that the experience of arousal could be ambiguous and therefore misattributed to an incorrect stimulus. Operating under this assumption, the researchers developed the two factor theory of emotion. Misattribution of arousal, which is an influence on emotion processing, can be found in multiple situations, such as romantic situations and physiological responses from exercise.
An example of the possible effects of misattribution of arousal is perceiving a potential partner as more attractive because of a heightened state of physiological stress. A study done by White et al. (1981)[2] investigated this phenomenon and found that those in an unrelated aroused state will rate an attractive confederate more highly than a rater without arousal. The researchers also found that aroused raters would dislike an unattractive confederate more than those without arousal.
^White, G; Fishbein, S; Rutsein, J (1981). "Passionate love and the misattribution of arousal". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 41: 56–62. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.41.1.56.
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