Excitation transfer theory was originally introduced
by Dolf Zillmann (1971) and has been refined by him
in several subsequent publications. Central assumption
in the ETT is that the physiological dimension of one’s emotional response to a stimulus persists beyond the
immediate exposure to that stimulus. Excitation can primarily
be seen as dominance of sympathetic activity in
the autonomic nervous system. ETT postulates that
emotional responses work in an additive fashion even
in the absence of any environmental cue but the actual.
In other words, the response to the new situation may
amount to an emotional overreaction.
ETT was originally employed to explain emotional
reactivity in immediate social interactions (e.g., aggression)
as well as in a variety of media contexts (e.g.,
enjoyment of drama and sports, advertising). For example,
in a study by Cantor, Bryant, and Zillmann (1974),
individuals who had been exposed to highly arousing
media content rated humorous material that followed
funnier than those who had not been exposed before.
In sport psychology ETT has been especially
employed to explain peaks of emotional responses
among viewers watching sports and be considered as
underlying theory for the process of mood management
(Zillmann, 1988), e.g., during watching a sports game.
Even aggressive emotions of the crowd or a group, like
hooligans (Densley & Peterson, 2017) can be explained
by ETT. Excitement generated by a sporting event can
keep people so agitated that they may react more
intensely and more aggressively than otherwise.
