What did the results of Dutton and Aron's study indicate about arousal from the scary bridge?

The study by Dutton and Aron investigated how physiological arousal could be misattributed to emotional feelings, specifically concerning attraction. The setting involved a high, shaky suspension bridge that induced fear and arousal in males who crossed it. After crossing, these men encountered an attractive female experimenter who approached them to ask about their experience. The results showed that the men who had just crossed the scary bridge were more likely to call the female experimenter later and write more sexual content in their responses, suggesting they misattributed their heightened physiological arousal from the fear of crossing the bridge as attraction toward her.

This phenomenon aligns with the concept of misattribution of arousal, where the participants mistakenly connect their arousal—which originated from the bridge's fear-inducing environment—to feelings of romantic or sexual attraction. The strong emotions felt during fear can intensify feelings associated with attraction when participants subsequently encountered the experimenter.

This understanding sheds light on how individuals can confuse different sources of emotional arousal, a crucial aspect of social psychology that reveals the complexities of how we experience and interpret our emotions in social contexts.