I’m really am partial to the Schachter-Singer two-factor theory of emotion as it seems to jive well with my own experience of emotion. The idea is that arousal in the body does not have a built-in emotional label, it is just raw energy. Your heart races, adrenaline floods in, your breathing quickens, and your muscles tense, but none of that is automatically “fear” or “lust” or “joy.” According to Schachter and Singer, it is only after this bodily arousal that the brain interprets it in context and assigns meaning. That is why the same physical state could become sexual arousal, excitement, or panic depending on what you tell yourself is happening.

It makes evolutionary sense to react first and contextualize later. If you are walking through the woods and see a bear, your body jolts into action before you consciously register “I am afraid.” The spike of adrenaline helps you run or freeze or do whatever keeps you alive, then your brain comes in a split second later with the story. It works the same way with pulling your hand off a hot stove before you pause to reflect on why that was a bad idea. The system prioritizes survival first, interpretation second.

You can see this theory in action in the classic Dutton and Aron suspension bridge experiment. Men who met an attractive woman on a high, shaky bridge suspended over a canyon were more likely to later call her than men who met her in a calm park. Not only that, the stories they wrote when prompted were more sexual in tone. Their bodies were pumping with adrenaline from the fear of heights, but because they were standing in front of a woman, the brain interpreted that arousal as attraction. Other research has confirmed the same effect in different contexts. People who exercise before rating photographs find the images more attractive. Couples who watch scary movies report feeling closer afterwards. The body does not distinguish between fear and excitement, so the brain bends the raw state into whichever narrative makes sense in the moment. Marketers and politicians know this very well. Campaigns and advertisements often deliberately blur the line between fear and thrill because they run on the same fuel.

This makes sense to me because I notice that in my own life I will randomly get a flash of a feeling and I can sort of just assign it whatever significance or lack thereof I want to. I might feel something that could be “sad” and I could decide I am sad about something that recently happened, or I could chalk it up to a physical state, or I can just dismiss it altogether and watch it disappear. The nervous kind of energy that could turn into anxiety can also be turned into sexual arousal if I want it to be. I do not know if everyone does this or if I am a weirdo, but I find it helpful because I do not particularly enjoy being sad or angry, so I usually just choose not to.

Modern neuroscience lines up with this view too. Regions like the insula track bodily states and signal to the brain that something is happening, while the prefrontal cortex works to interpret and reframe those states. That is why reappraisal or reframing is such a powerful emotion regulation tool. You can tell yourself you are anxious, or you can tell yourself you are excited. The raw arousal is the same, but the outcome is totally different.

Nietzsche’s idea of transvaluation is deeply relevant here. For him, the highest creative act was to take raw forces like suffering, fear, or chaos and bend them into new values, to twist them away from nihilism and into affirmation. The Schachter-Singer model shows the psychological mechanism that makes such a thing possible. Emotions are not absolute categories etched into us by nature, they are interpretive overlays placed on top of undifferentiated energy. What Nietzsche called the revaluation of values is mirrored in the way we can revalue the meaning of our arousal. Anxiety can become anticipation, dread can become challenge, weakness can become defiance. It is the same energy, but with a new frame. This is why I like the two-factor theory so much, because it gives a biological and psychological explanation for what Nietzsche was describing philosophically. It explains how the body provides the fire, and the mind decides whether to call it light or darkness.

So yeah, I am a fan since this theory seems to go along with the way I can redirect my feelings and why it seems to work. And learning to play with those interpretations can allow you to transmute the emotional energy and twist it into something more useful. Which sounds like weird esoteric psychobabble but I’ve found it can be both fun and useful.

Some Relevant References

Craig, A. D. (2009). How do you feel—now? The anterior insula and human awareness. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(1), 59–70. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2555

Dutton, D. G., & Aron, A. P. (1974). Some evidence for heightened sexual attraction under conditions of high anxiety. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 30(4), 510–517. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0037031

Gross, J. J. (1998). The emerging field of emotion regulation: An integrative review. Review of General Psychology, 2(3), 271–299. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.2.3.271

Leiter, B. (2002). Nietzsche on morality. Routledge.

Meston, C. M., & Frohlich, P. F. (2003). Love at first fright: Partner salience moderates roller-coaster-induced excitation transfer. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 32(6), 537–544. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025999814963

Nietzsche, F. (1974). The gay science (W. Kaufmann, Trans.). Vintage. (Original work published 1882)

Nietzsche, F. (1998). On the genealogy of morals (W. Kaufmann, Trans.). Vintage. (Original work published 1887)

Ochsner, K. N., & Gross, J. J. (2005). The cognitive control of emotion. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9(5), 242–249. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2005.03.010

Reginster, B. (2006). The affirmation of life: Nietzsche on overcoming nihilism. Harvard University Press.

Reisenzein, R. (1983). The Schachter theory of emotion: Two decades later. Psychological Bulletin, 94(2), 239–264. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.94.2.239

Schachter, S., & Singer, J. E. (1962). Cognitive, social, and physiological determinants of emotional state. Psychological Review, 69(5), 379–399. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0046234

White, G. L., Fishbein, S., & Rutstein, J. (1981). Passionate love and the misattribution of arousal. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 41(1), 56–62. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.41.1.56