15 Facts About Dolf Zillmann

Dolf Zillmann was born on March 12,1935 and is dean emeritus, and professor of information sciences, communication and psychology at the University of Alabama.

Dolf Zillmann's work centred on the relation between aggression, emotion, and arousal through media consumption, predominantly in pornography and violent genres of movie and television.

Dolf Zillmann's research includes the effects of music consumption, video games, and sports.

Dolf Zillmann was self-taught, his only means of gaining an education due to the widespread post-war resource shortages.

Dolf Zillmann would continue on to higher education studying German architecture at the Ulm School of Design, a new Bauhaus School of Architecture which had been re-opened by the Swiss architect Max Bill after its closure by Nazi authorities during the war.

Dolf Zillmann would go back to formal study at the Ulm School, studying in the fields of communication and cybernetics, engaging with many different academics in the field outside of Ulm such as the German aesthetics philosopher Max Bense at the University of Stuttgart and Professor of visual science Herbert Schober at the University of Munich.

Dolf Zillmann would acquire his diploma in communication and cybernetics in 1959 while working as a scientific advisor for a holding company in Zurich.

In 1968, Dolf Zillmann moved to the United States in Madison, Wisconsin, where he was a doctoral student in communication and psychology at the University of Wisconsin.

Whilst continuing his own research Dolf Zillmann established the Institute for Communications Research at the university, Dolf Zillmann acting as the Director of the ICR from 1974 - 1988.

Dolf Zillmann has conducted research in media psychology and communication for 30 years developing a wide range of psychological and communications theories and models.

Dolf Zillmann's research has been in a range of domains, these include:.

Dolf Zillmann combined Schachter's cognitive approach to emotion with Hullian Drive Theory, particularly in regards to Hull's concept of 'excitational residues' in the cognitive process of emotional responses, implicating that both present and prior excitatory stimuli affect both excitatory levels and emotional cognition.

The study found that erotic stimuli more significantly increased aggressive responses than even those of the aggressive stimulus, Dolf Zillmann would continue to study the excitatory effects of pornographic and other erotic material in later research.

Dolf Zillmann's research was predominantly engaged in the effects of pornography on both behavioural and attitudinal dispositions.

Dolf Zillmann emphasised his dissatisfaction with his research into the effects of pornography as a result of the continuous controversy and backlash faced upon publication of his results.