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Two studies examined the effect of game outcome on sports fans' estimates of the team's as well as their own future performance. Consistent with social identity theory, it was expected that Ss for whom fanship was an important identity would respond to team success and failure as personal success and failure. Ss watched a live basketball game; then, in the context of a second, unrelated experiment, Ss estimated their own performance at several tasks. Results indicated that fans' mood and self-esteem were affected by game outcome. More important, fans' estimates of both the team's and their own future performance were significantly better in the win than in the loss condition. Furthermore, path analyses revealed that changes in self-esteem but not mood played a mediational role in fans' estimates of both team and their own future performance. In addition, comparisons with conditions of personal success and failure indicated that team outcome and personal outcome had similar effects on fans' estimates.

After explicating essentials of exemplification theory, research demonstrations of the effects of exemplar presentations on the formation and modification of beliefs about safety and health, as well as on the consequences of these beliefs for self-protective behavior, are summarized. Affective reactivity connected with exemplifications, especially with exemplifications presented in pictorial formats, is given special consideration. The implications of theory and research for the promotion of safety and health via the media of communication are then enumerated. The influence of exemplifications on matters of personal welfare is further considered in concert with the influence projected by complementary theoretical approaches that focus on strategic decision making.Exemplification theory (Zillmann, 1999(Zillmann, , 2002 addresses the formation and modification of beliefs about phenomena and issues on the basis of samplings of experienced and directly or indirectly witnessed concrete, unitary occurrences that share focal characteristics. The theory examines the conditions under which such samplings are aggregated and come to represent, impartially or in distorted ways, the whole of the respective phenomena and issues. Affective reactivity to exemplifying occurrences is central to the theory as it fosters depth of information processing and gives impetus to emotive action.Much of the research generated by the theory (Zillmann & Brosius, 2000) focuses on assessments of risks to safety and health, as well as on contingent apprehensions that motivate risk avoidance and related protective behavior. More specifically, the research concentrates on the formation of beliefs about threats to the welfare of others and ultimately of the threats to self, along with beliefs about effective and ineffective coping with these threats, on the basis of the exemplification of threats and their management in the informative and entertaining media of communication.Before summarizing some of the pertinent findings, we shall review the essentials of exemplification theory and the mechanisms invoked by it in particular. Presentation of research demonstrations is then followed by the extrapolation Corresponding author: Dolf Zillmann;

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