The aim of the current series of studies was to begin the process of examining whether a propensity to act rashly in response to positive affective states (positive urgency) increases the likelihood of engaging in risky, maladaptive, and harmful acts. We theorized that this trait may account for some types of risky drinking behavior not explained by other risk factors, particularly for college students. In the current series of studies, an internally consistent (=.94), unidimensional scale was developed. This scale was shown to have convergent validity across methods and discriminant validity from other types of impulsivity. For both alcohol use and risky behavior, positive urgency explained variance not explained by other forms of impulsivity. Cross-sectional tests were consistent with the hypothesis that positive urgency leads to positive alcohol expectancies, which lead to increased drinking, which leads to involvement in risky behavior. This possibility should be examined prospectively.

Building on Critical Art Ensemble’s initial formulation of the data body, and on Kevin Haggerty and Richard Ericson’s concept of surveillant assemblages, my thesis explores a further articulation of digital subjectivity by examining ‘data body’ as a referent for the various data connections and layers that a neoliberal subject is presumed to gather and generate over the course of a day. The flesh is bound to and by this data, as many examples indicate data’s ability to expand, spread, “go viral” and have a discernible effect on a user’s practical existence. My thesis deals with the ways that disciplinary and security logics are at work in these digital spaces and how they establish a tertiary regime, as outlined by Foucault. By considering the work of Lauren Berlant and Sara Ahmed to support my assertion of bodies as situated and institutionally validated by technology, I discuss the modulation of affects such as fear and threat to establish modes of conduct mediated by the data bodies of their users.

The “connection generation” craves interaction with and connection to vast social networks through the sharing of information, photos, opinions, entertainment and news. This sharing comes in the form of electronic word-of-mouth or eWOM, and provides marketing and communication managers with an unparalleled opportunity to reach a large number of consumers quickly. With the ever increasing growth of the internet and the rise of social media and social network sites, viral marketing has cemented itself in the marketing and corporate agenda. However, while there has been a shift in marketing budgets towards online and social media, little is known about how to successfully leverage viral marketing. Consequently, understanding why some videos go viral and others do not is becoming an increasingly popular focus of academic research. This study aimed to answer the following research question: What are the factors that drive the virality of online content?   In an attempt to answer this exploratory research question, four papers were used to look at its constituent parts. In the first paper, the role of emotion in the sharing of online content was investigated. Rime’s social sharing of emotion theory was used to explain why emotion could drive the spread of content online. We suggested that people’s propensity to share viral content was a function of the intensity, sociality and complexity of the emotion elicited by the viral content.   The following two papers further investigated the role of emotion in viral marketing by looking at the relationship between content and emotion. Paper 2 used interviews in a qualitative research design to propose a decision-tree of the interplay between content and emotion in viral marketing. This paper showed that the relevance of the content has an influence on viewers’ emotional response. Paper 3 took a closer look at the relationship between content and emotion by using a two-stage design: First, content analysis was done on the comments of selected YouTube videos. Second, an experiment was used to test the emotions that these videos elicited in respondents, the valence of those emotions, the intensity with which they were felt, as well as various content-related factors (e.g. the creativity and humor used in the videos). This paper looked specifically at the use of political communication in viral marketing and showed that creativity, valence and the intensity of the emotions elicited by the content are key drivers of viral success.   The final and fourth paper culminates in a model for the sharing of content online. This paper built on the findings from the previous papers, but also made use of interviews, and the analysis of a longitudinal dataset to propose a comprehensive model for the spread of content online. The longitudinal dataset was compiled using the top 10 posts from Reddit.com, a viral aggregator website, over the period of 25 days. The comprehensive model shows that there are external, intrapersonal and interpersonal drivers of viral content. The external drivers of viral content are the viral videos themselves (content) and its popularity. The content construct refers to various aspects related to the content itself, for example how informative, creative, humorous etc. the content is. Its popularity, on the other hand, was driven by both WOM and mainstream media reports. The intrapersonal drivers of viral content refer to the emotions that the content elicited in viewers. Viewers’ emotional response to the content was influenced by its relevance, but also by the valence and intensity of the emotion that they felt. Even though some content elicited intense emotions in viewers, some viewers did not share the content and interpersonal drivers of viral content was introduced to the model. These drivers recognise the social aspect of social media, and that content gets shared with large social networks. The model contends that people share viral content with their social networks as a form of online gift giving, out of altruism, or simply to build their own reputation. Finally, we contend that, in this content à emotion à social sharing chain, people share viral content both online and offline, as many respondents simply told their friends about the content (thus prompting them to go and watch the content themselves) or showed them the content themselves. This online and offline sharing of content increased the popularity of the content and a self-reinforcing chain was created, increasing the exponential growth typically associated with viral content.   As consumers are exposed to an increasing amount of marketing messages, and marketing budgets shrink, marketing managers could greatly benefit from better understanding how to more effectively make social media part of their marketing strategy. Viral marketing allows for a low-cost way of communicating marketing messages with great potential for impacting the market. This study ultimately shows what marketing managers can do to increase their chances of viral success, and ends off with a list of managerial recommendations to leverage the external, intrapersonal and interpersonal factors present in viral campaigns. / <p>QC 20140911</p>

Listening to music is rated as one of the most pleasurable activities in human life and,in fact, listeners report the emotional impact of music to be one of the main motivatorsas to why they listen to music. This thesis focuses on the positive affective statesexperienced when listening to music and their underlying neural substrates. Despite thefact that research on the neural correlates of music-induced positive affect is arelatively recent undertaking our understanding has significantly improved during thelast decades. The aim of the current thesis is to give an overview of the neuralcorrelates of music-induced positive affect in healthy individuals. As such,psychophysiological, neuroimaging and electrophysiological studies are reviewed.Across studies the consistent involvement of brain regions, such as the orbitofrontalcortex, the striatum and the amygdala and left hemisphere frontal regions in response tomusic-induced positive affect has been found. These structures constitute an importantpart of the mesolimbocortical reward circuitry found to be involved in the processing ofa wide range of pleasures. The thesis also discusses conceptual and methodologicallimitations inherent in the studies reviewed. Understanding the nature and underlyingneural basis of music-induced positive affect is important because of the implications itmay have for psychological and physical wellbeing.

This thesis maps out the phenomenological and ontological contours of ‘hope’ in an attempt to challenge traditional individualistic, psychologized, and normative accounts, and to reconceptualise hope as a practice of control. Spinoza and Deleuze’s theory of affect is used to develop an understanding of the ‘hoping body’ as the effect of a symbiotic encounter with a conglomerate of forces. The spatio-temporal dynamics and relations of power at work in this larger conglomerate are also explored through Deleuze and Guattari’s assemblage theory. Ultimately, this thesis argues that hope inaugurates complex practices of mobility control by operating as a claim about the necessity of a particular pathway and vehicle in the present that is grounded on the possibility of a desirable destination in the future. / Graduate

The goal of this thesis is to defend non-representationalist perceptualism about pain against the challenges brought to it by Murat Aydede. These challenges are intended to apply to both a strong version of representationalism and general perceptualism about pain, however I maintain that they are less effective when aimed at the latter. In the interest of pulling apart these two views, I suggest that a more comprehensive theory of introspection than what is currently being used in the debate should be given. This thesis is an attempt to put forward such a view in service of the perceptual theorist. Once an alternative theory of introspection is given, several of the challenges that target perceptualism are avoided. Additionally I argue that the version of representationalism developed by Michael Tye is undermined by his explanation of pain’s negative affect. Consequently, I claim that one need not endorse representationalist commitments in order to maintain the attractive tenets of perceptualism. / Graduate

This dissertation examines affect, rhetoric and aesthetics in relation to English thought of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, focusing in particular on music. It argues that a “dual aesthetic”, or a division in perception of an artistic experience between broad conceptions related to the intellectual and the sensual, was an implied discourse running through discussions of art, philosophy, music, education and other areas. I argue that both seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophers of the arts viewed the intellectual and sensual experiences as different things, and this distinction meant that they felt that an individual could perceive a painting, a work of music or another expression of artistic intent on two levels. A related division is between the macro-rhetorical, or broadly constructional, elements and the micro-rhetorical, or minutiae. In terms of music, ideas of affect and rhetoric were employed in three main ways in the period, given here in increasing order of their level of specific detail. The first was as concepts of general relation between different arts such as poetry, music and painting. Philosophical thought of the period held that the aim of any art was to move the passions and affections, and rhetoric was a template used to establish terms of discussion. The second way in which these ideas could be related to music was as general metaphors, such as the common metaphor of a piece as an oration. The third relation was on the constructional level, where ideas of musical affect were applied to instrumentation, rhythm, dynamics and other areas. Rhetoric served here as a specific constructional model, providing tools such as templates for the general structure of a work and figures that could be used in order to move the passions appropriately. The primary sources consulted are, for the most part, works either written in England, translated into English in the period, or well-known there during the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth century. Many of these were not concerned in the first instance with music, and explored instead aesthetics, philosophy or the arts in general. Such a contextual examination helps clarify terminological confusion, and many terms which have, for example, a musico-rhetorical function can thus be identified. There was no unified theory of affect and the passions, and certainly no definitive catalogue of musico-rhetorical devices in England in this period. Instead, this dissertation looks at commonalities of approach and the chronological development of affective and rhetorical elements in music. To this end, a wide range of sources have been discussed and contextualized, including works on classical rhetoric and its derivatives, education and medicine. General concepts are identified and information is then extrapolated from this. Ultimately, the elements combine in a hierarchy of construction, with overreaching principles coming from rhetoric, broad elements from affective theory and minutiae from both. The dual aesthetic, an implicit principle underlying seventeenth- and eighteenth-century thought about the arts, is thus made explicit in this dissertation.

This dissertation examines affect, rhetoric and aesthetics in relation to English thought of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, focusing in particular on music. It argues that a “dual aesthetic”, or a division in perception of an artistic experience between broad conceptions related to the intellectual and the sensual, was an implied discourse running through discussions of art, philosophy, music, education and other areas. I argue that both seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophers of the arts viewed the intellectual and sensual experiences as different things, and this distinction meant that they felt that an individual could perceive a painting, a work of music or another expression of artistic intent on two levels. A related division is between the macro-rhetorical, or broadly constructional, elements and the micro-rhetorical, or minutiae. In terms of music, ideas of affect and rhetoric were employed in three main ways in the period, given here in increasing order of their level of specific detail. The first was as concepts of general relation between different arts such as poetry, music and painting. Philosophical thought of the period held that the aim of any art was to move the passions and affections, and rhetoric was a template used to establish terms of discussion. The second way in which these ideas could be related to music was as general metaphors, such as the common metaphor of a piece as an oration. The third relation was on the constructional level, where ideas of musical affect were applied to instrumentation, rhythm, dynamics and other areas. Rhetoric served here as a specific constructional model, providing tools such as templates for the general structure of a work and figures that could be used in order to move the passions appropriately. The primary sources consulted are, for the most part, works either written in England, translated into English in the period, or well-known there during the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth century. Many of these were not concerned in the first instance with music, and explored instead aesthetics, philosophy or the arts in general. Such a contextual examination helps clarify terminological confusion, and many terms which have, for example, a musico-rhetorical function can thus be identified. There was no unified theory of affect and the passions, and certainly no definitive catalogue of musico-rhetorical devices in England in this period. Instead, this dissertation looks at commonalities of approach and the chronological development of affective and rhetorical elements in music. To this end, a wide range of sources have been discussed and contextualized, including works on classical rhetoric and its derivatives, education and medicine. General concepts are identified and information is then extrapolated from this. Ultimately, the elements combine in a hierarchy of construction, with overreaching principles coming from rhetoric, broad elements from affective theory and minutiae from both. The dual aesthetic, an implicit principle underlying seventeenth- and eighteenth-century thought about the arts, is thus made explicit in this dissertation.

This dissertation examines affect, rhetoric and aesthetics in relation to English thought of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, focusing in particular on music. It argues that a “dual aesthetic”, or a division in perception of an artistic experience between broad conceptions related to the intellectual and the sensual, was an implied discourse running through discussions of art, philosophy, music, education and other areas. I argue that both seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophers of the arts viewed the intellectual and sensual experiences as different things, and this distinction meant that they felt that an individual could perceive a painting, a work of music or another expression of artistic intent on two levels. A related division is between the macro-rhetorical, or broadly constructional, elements and the micro-rhetorical, or minutiae. In terms of music, ideas of affect and rhetoric were employed in three main ways in the period, given here in increasing order of their level of specific detail. The first was as concepts of general relation between different arts such as poetry, music and painting. Philosophical thought of the period held that the aim of any art was to move the passions and affections, and rhetoric was a template used to establish terms of discussion. The second way in which these ideas could be related to music was as general metaphors, such as the common metaphor of a piece as an oration. The third relation was on the constructional level, where ideas of musical affect were applied to instrumentation, rhythm, dynamics and other areas. Rhetoric served here as a specific constructional model, providing tools such as templates for the general structure of a work and figures that could be used in order to move the passions appropriately. The primary sources consulted are, for the most part, works either written in England, translated into English in the period, or well-known there during the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth century. Many of these were not concerned in the first instance with music, and explored instead aesthetics, philosophy or the arts in general. Such a contextual examination helps clarify terminological confusion, and many terms which have, for example, a musico-rhetorical function can thus be identified. There was no unified theory of affect and the passions, and certainly no definitive catalogue of musico-rhetorical devices in England in this period. Instead, this dissertation looks at commonalities of approach and the chronological development of affective and rhetorical elements in music. To this end, a wide range of sources have been discussed and contextualized, including works on classical rhetoric and its derivatives, education and medicine. General concepts are identified and information is then extrapolated from this. Ultimately, the elements combine in a hierarchy of construction, with overreaching principles coming from rhetoric, broad elements from affective theory and minutiae from both. The dual aesthetic, an implicit principle underlying seventeenth- and eighteenth-century thought about the arts, is thus made explicit in this dissertation.

Thesis (M.S.)--Auburn University, 2007. / Abstract. Includes bibliographic references (ℓ. 61-71)