The concept that increased sympathetic nervous system activity caused by watching arousing media content can intensify subsequent emotional states - such as anger or annoyance - thus heightening the subsequent state is known as <u>excitation transfer</u>.
<h2>Further Explanation</h2>
The theory of excitation transfer says that though hedonic emotions or valances may vary, the residual excitation from a stimulus will increase the excitatory response to another stimulus. However, the process of transferring excitation is not only limited to single feelings or emotions.
For example: if you’re watching a movie and the hero is wronged by the villain, you can become angered and this excitation may increase your pleasure to witness how the villain will be dealt with later in the movie. Although the first excitation of the stimulus you developed when the hero was wronged is accessed as anger but the excitation that comes after the villain was punished is accessed as pleasure
However, three conditions are required before excitation transfer can take place, the three conditions are:
- The second stimulus can only take place before the total decay of the from the original stimulus
- There is a misattribution of arousal or excitation; this means after being exposed to the second stimulus, the person that is experiencing the excitation extends the complete excitation to the second stimulus.
- The person experiencing the excitation has not reached the normal excitatory threshold or limit before being exposed to the second stimulus
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KEYWORDS:
- excitation
- arousal
- feelings
- emotion
- transfer