ArticlePDF Available

Enhancement of Experienced Sexual Arousal in Response to Erotic Stimuli Through Misattribution of Unrelated Residual Excitation

Authors:
Joanne Cantor at University of Wisconsin–Madison
Joanne Cantor
Dolf Zillmann
Dolf Zillmann
Dolf Zillmann
  • This person is not on ResearchGate, or hasn't claimed this research yet.
Jennings Bryant
Jennings Bryant
Jennings Bryant
  • This person is not on ResearchGate, or hasn't claimed this research yet.
Download full-text PDF
Read full-text
Download citation

Abstract and Figures

In a pretest, three phases of recovery from a standard physical exercise were determined. In Phase 1, subjects experienced high levels of physiological excitation and recognized that their arousal was due to exercise. In Phase 2, subjects maintained substantial excitatory residues from the exercise but felt that their arousal had returned to base level. In Phase 3, subjects' excitatory responses had decayed, and they knew they had recovered from the exercise. Subjects in the main experiment were exposed to an erotic film in the first, second, or third recovery phase after performing the exercise. Subjects viewing the film during the second recovery phase reported being more sexually aroused by the film and evaluated the film more positively than subjects in the other two conditions. Counter to the notion of arousal as a simple energizer of all behavior, these findings were interpreted as supporting excitation-transfer theory, which posits that residual excitation enhances emotional responses to unrelated, immediately present stimuli only when the prevailing arousal cannot be attributed to its actual source.
Figures - uploaded by Joanne Cantor
Author content
All figure content in this area was uploaded by Joanne Cantor
Content may be subject to copyright.
Content uploaded by Joanne Cantor
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Joanne Cantor on Oct 05, 2014
Content may be subject to copyright.
A preview of the PDF is not available
A preview of this full-text is provided by American Psychological Association.
Learn more
Content available from Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
This content is subject to copyright. Terms and conditions apply.
... The lime may have arrived, however, in which failure to include mood and emotion in cognitive-scientific research programs may obscure rather than facilitate understanding of even the most basic mental processes. In addition to G. Bower's work, there is a rapidly growing body of literature demonstrating the influence of "hot" processes in cognition (e.g., Bornstein, 1989;Cantor, Zillmann, & Bryant, 1975;Kostandov & Arzumanov, 1977;Somekh & Wilding, 1973). The SSA research program contributes to this converging evidence by attesting to a pivotal role for mood and emotion in cognitive processes. ...
Subliminally Activated Symbiotic Fantasies: Facts and Artifacts
Article
Full-text available
  • Mar 1990
A quantitative review of subliminal symbiotic activation research is presented. Ss viewed MOMMY AND I ARE ONE and other psychoanalytically relevant or neutral stimuli at subliminal exposure levels, and comparative effects on adaptive behavior were observed. The review procedure was one in which the results of a meta-analysis were corrected for statistical artifacts. Small but significant effects were revealed. All observed variance between studies is attributable to random sampling and measurement error. Future research designed to replicate basic experimental effects is deemed superfluous. Some implications for psychoanalytic theory, cognitive science, and subliminal perception research are discussed.
View
... The theory posits the judgment is as an affective reaction where residual arousal from a previous stimulus or event (e.g., arousal experienced from watching a sporting event) decays slowly and persists when processing subsequent stimuli or event (e.g., team's advertisement, licensed product); and, the residual arousal leads to enhanced affective and evaluative responses to that subsequent stimuli or event (Cummins et al., 2012;Wang & Lang, 2012). A considerable amount of studies also supported the finding that arousal dimensions have a polarization effect on subsequence evaluations of music (Cantor & Zillmann, 1973), humor (Cantor et al., 1975), drama (Zillmann, 1980), horror movie (Oliver, 1994), advertisements (Mundorf et al., 1991), video games (Shafer, 2014), and websites (Sundar & Kalyanaraman, 2004). Further, few studies (e.g., Paulhus & Lim, 1994) have reported that the arousal dimension rather than the valence dimension plays a significant role in the judgement process. ...
View
... Another explanation for greater bladder control decreasing sexual control could be a misattribution of arousal (Cantor et al., 1975;Dutton & Aron, 1974;Lewandowski & Aron, 2004;Meston & Frohlich, 2003). This has been documented in studies in which physiological arousal due to a third source was misinterpreted as romantic attraction or sexual arousal. ...
Increased Urination Urgency Exacerbates Sexual Risk-Taking Through Heightened Sexual Arousal
Article
Full-text available
  • Jul 2022
  • ARCH SEX BEHAV
Increased urination urgency has been shown to facilitate impulse control in cognitive domains, but its effects in other areas are unknown. We examined whether inhibitory spillover effects would replicate and extend to close relationships-specifically, influencing decision making related to sexual risk-taking. Across three studies, we either measured (Studies 1 and 3) or manipulated (Study 2) participants' bladder pressure and assessed sexual self-control using a questionnaire of sexual risk-taking intentions (Study 1) or a simulated semi-behavioral sexual risk-taking (Choose Your Own Sexual Adventure) task (Studies 2 and 3). Study 1 (N = 44 men, 59 women) showed greater urination urgency was associated with greater sexual risk-taking. Study 2 (N = 65 men, 91 women) showed that increasing urination urgency led to greater sexual risk-taking, but only among men. Study 3 (N = 86 men, 183 women) showed elevated urination urgency was associated with an increase in sexual arousal, which accounted for the greater sexual risk-taking.
View
... The study of violence in societal expressions of love goes even further back in history. Zillmann, Cantor, and Bryant (1975) conducted research on erotic material and its effect on human behavior, or what they call arousal transfer. Arousal transfer theory posits that the arousal experienced from watching erotic material causes people to be in a heightened emotional state. ...
View
View
View
Reconceptualizing Arousal: Psychobiological States in Motor Performance
Article
Full-text available
  • May 1988
This review of research dealing with psychologically induced arousal and motor performance focuses on the hypothesized inverted-∪ function relating arousal to performance. The inverted-∪ hypothesis is supported only in a weak and psychologically trivial fashion: Subjects with incentive will outperform either those with none or those responding to a serious and plausible threat; the arousal level of the first group will be intermediate to those of the other two. However, debilitating states (e.g., anxiety) can occur at arousal levels equal to that optimal for performance (the state of being “psyched up”). The concept of arousal cannot distinguish between these and other states (e.g., anger, sexuality, and fear) because it is an excessively broad physiological construct artificially severed from its psychological context. More useful research in human motor performance would investigate discrete psychobiological states, which include affect and cognition as well as physiology. Examination of profound individual differences in response to incentive and threat suggests that psychobiological states have their genesis in response expectancies and hypnotic-like self-inductions. The cognitive and affective components of these states are highly interactive and perhaps not profitably separated. Because performance anxiety is a central problem in the motor realm, it is carefully delineated and the test anxiety literature is scrutinized. Psychophysiological test batteries and other investigations in the area are described, and guidelines for future research are provided.
View
Excitation Transfer Theory
Chapter
  • Jun 2008
The theory of excitation transfer addresses sequential dependencies in emotional reactivity. Specifically, it predicts an enhancement of emotional reactions to immediately present emotion‐arousing situations by portions of excitation that are left over from preceding related or unrelated emotion‐arousing situations (→ emotion; Excitation and Arousal). The theory operationalizes excitation primarily as dominance of sympathetic activity in the autonomic nervous system and treats this activity as the main determinant of the intensity of emotional behavior and experience (Zillmann 1983, 1996). Excitation transfer theory was initially advanced and tested to explain emotional reactivity in immediate social interactions. It equally applies, however, to emotional reactivity evoked by exposure to communication. Excitation transfer may be created by emotions from message exposure and affect emotions in social interactions, be created by emotions from social interactions and affect emotions from message exposure, and be both created by and affect emotions from message exposure (Zillmann 2006).
View
View
References
Article
  • Sep 2022
The way the brain, body, and mind interact with social structure to shape communication has so far not received the attention it deserves. This book addresses this gap by providing a novel account of communication as a social, biological and neurological force. Combining theories from communication studies and psycholinguistics, and drawing on biological and evolutionary perspectives, it shows how communication is inherently both biological and social, and that language and the neural systems that support it have evolved in response to a complex social environment. It introduces a clear set of terms based on current research, and illustrates key concepts using real-life examples from everyday conversation - speaking to a number of current debates around the evolutionary and biological basis of language, and the relationship between language, cognition, and environment. Thought provoking and engaging, it will change the way we think about the relationship between communication and cognition.
View
Film-induced arousal, information search, and the attribution process
Article
Full-text available
  • Mar 1973
Exposed female undergraduates to a placebo jet of compressed "pharmacological" gas throughout their viewing of an arousing film. 15 Ss who were given gas side effect information consistent with a state of arousal reported feeling less anxious while viewing the film than 30 Ss who received either no side effect information or no gas at all. The hypothesized information search process associated with Ss who lack adequate explanation for their internal state was investigated by assessing Ss' recall of content of the film. Ss who lacked adequate explanation for their arousal state recalled more of the stimulus material than Ss who were induced to misattribute their symptoms to the gas. Results support the hypothesized information search process within the framework of attribution theory.
View
Excitation transfer from physical exercise to subsequent aggressive behavior1
Article
  • May 1972
In a factorial design, Ss were (a) differentially aggressively instigated (low vs high), and (b) placed in different states of sympathetic arousal (low vs high) by means of physical exercise. Subsequent aggressive behavior, as measured by the intensity of shock ostensibly delivered to the earlier instigator, was found to increase significantly with initial instigation. It was also found to increase significantly with residual sympathetic activation from strenuous exercise (bike-riding) interpolated between instigation and retaliation. A significant interaction was obtained deriving from the fact that residual excitation greatly facilitated subsequent aggressiveness under conditions of pronounced initial instigation, whereas its effect was negligible under minimal instigation. The findings were interpreted as consistent with expectations from the two-factor theory and the transfer theory of emotion.
View
The Interaction of Cognitive and Physiological Determinants of Emotional State
Article
  • Dec 1964
  • ADV EXP SOC PSYCHOL
The different emotions are accompanied by recognizably different bodily states, and the direct manipulation of bodily state, by drugs or surgery, also manipulates emotional state. This chapter describes the implications of a cognitive-physiological formulation of emotion, and a series of experiments designed to test these implications. The emotional states are a function of the interaction of cognitive factors with a state of physiological arousal. Cognitions arising from the immediate situation provide the framework within which one understands and labels his feelings, and cognitive factors can lead the individual to describe his feelings with any of a variety of emotional labels, such as euphoria or anger. The experimental results suggest that given a state of physiological arousal for which an individual has no explanation, he labels this state in terms of the cognitions available to him, and by manipulating the cognitions of an individual in such a state, his feelings can be manipulated in diverse directions. Under the state of physiological arousal for which the individual has a completely satisfactory explanation, he does not label this state in terms of the alternative cognitions available. While, under the constant cognitive circumstances, an individual reacts emotionally only to the extent that he experiences a state of physiological arousal.
View
View
Attribution of apparent arousal and proficiency of recovery from sympathetic excitation transfer to aggressive behavior
Article
  • Nov 1974
In a pretest, subjects' proficiency to recover from sympathetic arousal induced by strenuous exercise was assessed. The results were used to determine conditions of high, intermediate, and low recovery proficiency (fitness). After an assessment of subjects' unprovoked aggressiveness, subjects were aggressively provoked. Within proficiency blocks, they were then given one of two treatments, (a) sitting followed by exercising (no decay) or (b) exercising followed by sitting (partial decay), and were there-after provided with an opportunity to retaliate against their tormentor. Under conditions of no decay, in which the high levels of arousal experienced were attributable to exertion, the provocation treatment failed to increase aggressiveness significantly, and there were no differences in aggressiveness in the various proficiency conditions in spite of differentiations in the magnitude of prevailing excitatory residues. Under partial decay, in the absence of cues linking arousal to exertion, the magnitude of residual arousal did affect aggressive behavior: In the conditions of intermediate and low recovery proficiency, aggressiveness increased significantly with provocation and was more pronounced than in the condition of high proficiency (best fitness); in the condition of low proficiency (least fitness) aggressiveness was higher than in the condition of intermediate proficiency, but not reliably so.
View
The role of excitation in aggressive behavior
  • Jan 1971
  • D Zillmann
Zillmann, D. The role of excitation in aggressive behavior. Proceedings of the Seventeenth International Congress of Applied Psychology, 1971. Brussels: Editest, 1972.