Female Responses To Provocation After Exposure To Aggressive and Erotic Films

Abstract

Female college students were exposed to a neutral, aggressive, or erotic film. They then were either provoked or not provoked in a game situation which provided an immediate opportunity for retaliation. Both instigation and retaliation were operationalized in the delivery of noxious noise to the opponent. Benevolent behavior, operationalized in the delivery of pleasant sounds, was a response alternative to noxious noise. Physiological reactions to the films were measured These measures revealed that the erotic film was significantly more arousing than the aggressive film. The neutral film held an intermediate position and did not differ significantly from the other two. For subjects who were not provoked, the prior viewing of films did not differentially affect the delivery of noxious stimulation.For provoked subjects, however, those who had seen the erotic film delivered noxious noise significantly more often than those who had seen the aggressive film or the neutral film. The findings are best accounted for in terms of excitation-transfer theory, which states that an emotion such as anger will be intensified by arousal lingering on from prior experiences. The aggressive film did not intensify retaliation, presumably because it was not arousing to the female subjects. The need to study women independently of men in media-violence research was discussed.Studies of adult aggressive behavior have predominantly involved male subjects (see Frodi et al., 1977), and the neglect of the adult female subject is particularly characteristic of media-violence research. It is becoming increas-

Effects of Music on Physiological Arousal: Explorations into Tempo and Genre

“…In one study, exciting film clips were found to have an excitation-transfer effect on music, whereby increasingly arousing film clips led to greater liking of a rock song heard a few minutes after viewing the clip (Cantor & Zillmann, 1973). Other studies have shown the ability for physiologicallyarousing video segments to intensify emotional responses to mediated (Zillmann, Mody, & Cantor, 1974) or non-mediated stimuli (Cantor, Zillmann, & Einsiedel, 1978). In addition, increased arousal from physical exercise has resulted in higher ratings of arousal and enjoyment of later media content (Cantor, Zillmann, & Bryant, 1975).…”

Chewing on It Can Chew You Up: Effects of Rumination on Triggered Displaced Aggression.

“…One might argue, however, that our theoretical analysis of triggered displaced aggression appears to share general conceptual similarities with excitation transfer theory (Zillmann, 1971(Zillmann, , 1979 and that the latter theory can explain our findings. In excitation transfer theory, a provocation is combined with a manipulation of arousal such as noise, an erotic film, or physical exercise (e.g., Cantor, Zillmann, & Einsiedel, 1978;Donnerstein & Wilson, 1976;Zillmann, Katcher, & Milavsky, 1972). 4 At first glance, such manipulations of arousal correspond in some sense to what we have called a triggering event.…”

Women's Multiple Perspectives and Experiences with Pornography

“…Research on the effect of pornography on women's aggression has even less social grounding (e.g., Baron, 1979;Cantor, Zillmann, & Einsiedel, 1978), because female aggression is not a major social problem and as such has given little insight into women's experiences.…”