Question

Sarah was driving home after a particularly difficult day at work when someone cut her off and almost caused her to wreck her car. Still shaken from her near miss, she arrived home to find that her spouse had not yet started dinner, as he had promised to do. Sarah angrily accused him of being "a lazy bum" and started an argument with him. This situation can best be explained by ________.

Answer 1

This situation can best be explained by the excitation-transfer theory.

Step-by-step explanation:

According to the excitation-transfer theory, when people become aroused physiologically by a stimulus, it takes some time for the residual arousal to fade away. During this time, their emotional responses are intensified, which means they amplify their reactions to a stimulus that has nothing to do with the original stimulus that led to that arousal. That is precisely the case with Sarah. The original stimuli were the difficult day at work and the subsequent almost-accident. Upon arriving home, Sarah is still aroused from those stimuli, which leads her to overreact to her spouse's action.