Researcher at a glance
- Affiliation: Section for the History of Medicine, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
- Orientation: History of science / history of emotions and physiology
Key contributions
- Archival reconstruction of the origins of the Schachter–Singer two-factor theory, challenging the standard James–Lange genealogy.
- History of the ‘adrenalizing’ of emotions across the early 20th century, and of the sympathetic/parasympathetic ‘strong/soft’ distinction.
- History of the Cannon–Bard thalamic theory and of Cold-War-era brain science of reward/pleasure.
Key papers
- Dror (2017) — Dror (2017), Emotion Review.
- Dror, O. E. (2014). The Cannon–Bard thalamic theory of emotions: a brief genealogy and reappraisal. Emotion Review.
- Dror, O. E. (2010). Seeing the blush: Feeling emotions.
Connections
- Debates: What were the real origins of the Schachter–Singer two-factor theory?
- Related researchers: Stanley Schachter, Walter B. Cannon
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) and What were the real origins of the Schachter–Singer 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reading of well-worn texts (Schachter & Singer 1962; Schachter’s Psychology of Affiliation 1959; Wrightsman 1960) plus unpublished archival materials (Schachter–Solomon correspondence, the original reviewed manuscript) and interviews with Ladd Wheeler, Richard Nisbett, and Lee Ross.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
- 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.
- 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 B. Cannon, Stanley Schachter.