| The social psychologist Schachter obtained the bachelors and masters degrees from Yale University before leaving for the University of Michigan to work for the Ph.D. degree, which he received in 1950. Most of Schachter's career was spent at Columbia University, where he has been a professor in the Psychology Department since 1960. Before that, he was a Fulbright professor at the University of Amsterdam in the early 1950s and later served for some years with the Organization of Comparative Social Research. For his accomplishments, the American Psychological Association bestowed on him its Distinguished Scientific Award in 1969.
Schachter developed a cognitive theory of emotion in which he established that people cannot discriminate one emotion from another unless they have some cognitive indication as to what their feelings relate. Schachter's is a psychobiological theory of emotion, claiming that physiological arousal is insufficient to induce emotion, as cognition also must be present.
Schachter's other research interests include obesity, smoking, stress, hunger, and the need for affiliation. This last subject was discussed in detail in The psychology of affiliation. Other subjects are found in his Emotion, obesity and crime.
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