The purpose of this thesis is to investigate and understand the effect of a servicescape’s ambient and social conditions on consumers’ Approach/Avoidance behavior in a retail context. More specifically, this thesis investigates the effect of music (ambient stimuli) and employees’ self-disclosure (social stimuli) on consumers’ Approach/Avoidance behavior in a retail store. Paper I comprised two experiments. Experiment 1 investigated the influence of the independent variable No music/Music. Likewise, experiment 2 studied the influence of the independent variable No music/Slow-tempo music/Fast-tempo music. The dependent variables in both experiments were pleasure, arousal, and the resulting Approach/Avoidance behavior. Paper II investigated the influence of the independent variable self-disclosure. The dependent variables were Approach/Avoidance behavior, measured by pleasure, arousal, liking, satisfaction, and reciprocity. The conclusions of this thesis are that both ambient and social stimuli in a servicescape affect consumers’ internal responses, which in turn affect their behavior. Depending on the situation (type of purchase), retail (bank, supermarket, or electronic retail store), and stimuli (ambient or social), the internal and behavioral responses are different. / Populärvetenskaplig sammanfattning Människor påverkas hela tiden av det eller de som är närvarande runt omkring oss när vi ska fatta beslut. Så är även fallet när vi agerar som konsumenter. Speciellt något som benämns butikers upplevelserum (servicescape) har visat sig påverka konsumenter. Upplevelserummet delas in i två dimensioner, fysisk och social. Inom dessa två dimensioner finns en mängd olika påverkansstimuli. Fysiska stimuli är den fysiska miljön så som doft, möblering, skyltar eller musik som spelas i butik.  De sociala stimuli är den sociala miljön så som antal kunder i butiken och deras agerande, antal butikspersonal och deras agerande. Miljöpsykologer har studerat sambandet mellan fysisk miljö och mänskligt beteende under flera decennier. Mehrabian och Russell (1974) presenterade en värdefull teoretisk modell för att visa effekterna av fysisk miljö på människors beteende. Genom en stimuli-organism-respons (S-O-R) paradigm, förklarar modellen att externa miljöstimuli (S) kan generera känslomässiga reaktioner i en individ (O). Dessa känslomässiga reaktioner påverkar i sin tur individens närmande eller undvikande beteende gentemot miljön (R). Även om M-R-modellen inte ursprungligen utvecklats för att studera butikers upplevelserum, har det konstaterats vara lämplig för att förklara effekten av upplevelserummets dimensioner på konsumenternas beteende. Syftet med licentiatuppsatsen är att undersöka och förstå effekterna av stimuli i butikers upplevelserum på konsumenters känslor och beteende. I licentiatuppsatsen undersöks därför två stimuli i upplevelserummet, nämligen fysiska (musik) och sociala (butikpersonalens verbala beteende). Ett flertal vetenskapliga studier angående musiks påverkan på konsumenters känslor och köpbeteende har bevisat att musik påverkar våra känslor gällande framför allt upprymdhet och aktivering, vilket i sin tur påverkar vårt köpbeteende. Dock har flertalet av dessa studier utförts i laboratoriemiljö där försökspersonerna ofta varit studenter. Detta stärker den interna validiteten men försvagar den ekologiska validiteten. För att komma tillrätta med detta problem undersöks i den första studien (Paper I) musiks påverkan på kunders känslor och beteende genom två kvasiexperiment. Första experimentet genomfördes i en elektronikbutik där musik och ingen musik varierades under fyra dagar. Experiment två genomfördes i en dagligvaruhandelsbutik där ingen musik och tempo (lågt, högt) på musiken varierades under tre dagar.  I båda experimenten så tillfrågades kunderna, direkt efter de betalat sina varor, om de kunde fylla i en enkät angående sin butiksupplevelse Resultatet från dessa två experiment visar att musik påverkar vissa delar av kundbeteendet positivt, nämligen köp, kunder köper mer när musik spelas i butik. Dock visar resultatet även på negativa effekter så som lägre grad av glädje, interaktion med andra och upplevelse av köptillfället blir mer negativ när musik spelas i butik. Resultat visar också på att effekterna av musik modereras av kön där kvinnor och män påverkas olika av musik. Det blir allt mer vanligt att butikspersonal interagerar med kunder så som om det var en interaktion mellan vänner och ett generellt säljtips är att säljaren bör agera som en kompis och hitta något gemensamt med kunden för att på så sätt kunna påverka hans eller hennes köpbeteende i önskvärd riktning. I den andra studien (Paper II) undersöks, med hjälp av text baserade scenarier, hur bankpersonals verbala beteende, i form av att delge personlig information, påverkar kundens känslor och beteende. En konceptuell modell med tillhörande hypoteser testades. Modellen beskriver hur kundbeteendet (i detta fall grad av reciprocitet) påverkas av att bankpersonalen delger personlig information och hur detta medieras av dimensionerna gillande, glädje och tillfredställelse. Resultatet av modellen visar att effekten av att ge personlig information för reciprocitet medieras till fullo av dimensionerna gillande, glädje och tillfredställelse. Resultatet från denna studie visar också att det inte är fördelaktigt att delge personlig information om sig själv för att vinna fördelar, då effekten av detta är negativt för graden av gillande, glädje, tillfredställelse och reciprocitet. Slutsatserna av denna licentiatuppsats är dels att både fysiska stimuli (musik) och sociala stimuli (verbal interaktion) i butikens upplevelserum påverkar kunders känslor och beteende. Dock är det viktigt att uppmärksamma att påverkan av olika stimuli genererar olika effekter, som i sin tur påverkas av kön och vilken sorts butik/tjänst som konsumeras.

This thesis examines the composition of affective atmospheres, emerging in court sessions of criminal matter in Vienna. The notion of atmosphere is used to explore collective affective qualities, emerging through the interplay between affective bodies and their environment. The focus provides as analytical frame for bringing forward the workings of affect in legal procedures. From a starting point in theories of affect and atmosphere, I cast light at how the affectively charged space is both monitored and beyond control. First, I trace affect through the lens of spatial arrangements of courtrooms. I show how the architectural and interior arrangements and aesthetics of courtrooms are expedient in creating resonance between the bodies and control over the situations, while being visual and material representations of law. Second, I trace affect in the relation between the bodies that produce atmosphere and regard for the bodily capacity to affect and be affected. I consider principles of criminal procedure structuring and disciplining affective bodies in courtrooms and the juridical labour entailing work on emotions. Third, I trace affect in the dynamics and changes of affective atmosphere by showing how atmospheric changes come about and are contested through intensification and ruptures in atmosphere. I discuss the compositions of affective atmosphere in relation to discipline and control converging with bodies entering the legal setting. The ethnographic material is collected through participant observation in one hundred court sessions, as well as through interviews with people involved.

This thesis concerns the marketing, appropriation and consumption of affect in contemporary Cuban tourism. Since its rapid development to generate hard currency during the economic crisis of the 1990s, tourism has become the centre of the Cuban economy. More recently, following the radical reforms brought in under Raúl Castro, changes in private enterprise ventures have expanded touristic contact spaces beyond the previous controls of the formal sector. A range of services has emerged, responding to tourists’ demands to have an intimate, authentic experience of Cuba. Using the lens of affective capital, this study combines a consideration of this complex, rapidly-changing context with two further facets of the phenomenon: an analysis of the affective dimensions of Cuba’s representation in touristic texts, such as marketing, guidebooks, travel literature and online forums, and a discussion of the affective negotiations between host and guest on the ground. The strategic appropriation of affective capital identified in this thesis offers an original perspective on revolutionary Cuba’s tourism development. The resurgence of sex tourism since the resurrection of the tourism industry has been the dominant focus of previous scholarship, ignoring the wider ‘market of feelings’ that operates through tourism. In particular, approaches have been quick to emphasise the incongruity of prostitution in the context of revolutionary socialism, offering one-dimensional analyses of the state and the Cuban population. In addition, approaches from Tourism Studies have tended to be tourist-centric. This thesis draws together these actors with a dialogic approach in order to reveal some key complexities. The mixed methods approach combines textual analysis with some participative methods, carried out during a fieldwork trip in 2012, to address the connections between the lived realities of affective capital in Cuban tourism, the discourses that constitute it, and the social context. The findings reveal that Cuba is cast as a site of affective wealth through certain discourses and practices of tourism. Firstly, in describing the ways that Cuba is articulated through affective codes in touristic texts, this research reconfigures approaches to tourism’s world-making function through the framework of symbolic capital; it challenges the idea that revolutionary tourism policy is one-dimensional. Secondly, in looking at the lived realities of these discourses, the thesis critically addresses the kinds of negotiations relating to emotional work, bad feelings, and currency by both parties of the tourist encounter; this perspective extends important scholarship on tourism and affect in new directions based on the specificity of the Cuban context.

Psychopathy and alexithymia are disorders with many conceptual similarities. For example, Factor 1 of the Psychopathy Checklist - Revised (PCL-R; Hare, 1991) contains items like shallow affect and lack of empathy, which seem to map on to the construct of alexithymia. Additionally, both psychopaths and alexithymics display striking differences from others in their use of language, especially affective language. The two areas of interest in the present study were (a) occurrence and co—occurrence of psychopathy and alexithymia in a sample of female inmates, and (b) the relationship between affective language and these two disorders. Psychopathy and alexithymia were assessed in 37 women offenders incarcerated in a Burnaby Correctional Centre, using the PCL-R and the Toronto Alexithymia Scale ( TAS; Taylor, Ryan & Bagby, 1985). Each subject was presented with a short written scenario designed to elicit an emotional response, and asked to describe the feelings of the characters in the story. Their taped responses were analyzed for measures of affect. Base rates of both disorders were comparable to those in similar samples, ( 30% of the inmates were diagnosed as psychopathic; 33% as alexithymic) but the coxnorbidity rate was only 8%. There was a significant correlation between alexithymia scores and PCL—R Factor 2 scores — the factor assessing antisocial behaviour. Multiple regression analysis revealed that the TAS and PCL-R were both predictive of violence. This relationship between the PCL-R and violence is well substantiated; that the TAS also predicts violence is a newer finding. Alexithymics spoke more slowly, used fewer total words overall and fewer affective words, and displayed less emotion in their voices than did nonalexithymics. Psychopaths could not be identified by any vocal measures except a slight tendency to speak faster than nonpsychopaths. Although both disorders are characterized’ by affective impoverishment, the verbal expressions of affect were very different in psychopaths and alexithymics. The psychopaths were adept at convincing raters of an emotional investment they did not feel; alexithymics could not disguise their lack of appropriate emotional response. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

How do we understand our encounter with ambivalent or visceral aesthetic feelings—textual environments, moods, and atmospheres—if they do not solely belong to the representation of individual or collective emotions? This dissertation proposes a concept of “the feeling of form” to approach these aesthetic feelings as formal dynamics, such as restless orientations and rhythmic intensities. How can literary forms have feelings, and where—or is it necessary—to locate the textual body and the subject of these feelings? The goal of my dissertation is not to show what specific neurological procedures are involved in the emotive-cognitive entanglement between the text and the reader, but to understand “form” as a verb—forming, shaping, mediating, transmitting—whose dynamics and actions manifest the narrative form’s visceral aesthetic feelings, and to examine how such feelings bear significant cultural and political currency. Reading formal dynamics as aesthetic feelings also invites us to adjust our usual gaze at “form” away from categories coined by various formalisms, such as “genre,” “structure,” “focalization,” or “style.” In doing so, we are able to reimagine these categories as part of the dynamics of formal reorientations, rhythms, and syntactic intensities, and to open ourselves up to the impersonal agency and criticality of literary forms. Based on these convictions, my dissertation argues that reading for the feeling of form allows us to experience how literary forms transmit and regenerate volatile experiences of history in ways that complicate, supplement, or subvert the explicit representation of historical events and temporality in a literary text. In this dissertation, I focus on the relationship between the feeling of form and the experience of various histories in Ford Madox Ford’s Parade’s End (1924–1928), Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s A Scots Quair (1932–1934), Lawrence Durrell’s The Alexandria Quartet (1957–60), and Kazuo Ishiguro’s single-volume novel The Unconsoled (1995). Chapter One traces how nauseous form in Parade’s End allows us to experience wartime and postwar anxiety through Christopher Tietjens’s self-revolting and incoherent consciousness. Chapter Two examines how the deterioration of rhythm in A Scot’s Quair transmits a historical experience of gradual suffocation intricately linked with Scotland’s political and ecological disasters. In a brief Coda, I conclude my project by looking at how The Alexandria Quartet and The Unconsoled manifest weakened and depleted feelings of form, and how these feelings prompt us to rethink the relationship of the feeling of form to European heteronormative ideology and the ethics of community formation. The Unconsoled (1995), in particular, serves as a twofold limit case of the feeling of form: first, as a limit case of the futile feeling of form, and second, as a limit case of the distinction between the novel form and the novel series form. This twofold limit case speaks to its own historical experience of futility at the end of history, and responds to the aesthetic and ideological legacies of early twentieth-century experimental novel series. / Graduate / 2021-05-12

Given the proliferating aging population, increasing moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and exercise is critical because it enhances overall well-being and reduces the rates of many adverse age-related health conditions. However, intervention efforts to establish sustained changes in MVPA have yielded limited success due their sole focus on conscious factors (e.g., changing goals and intentions). Thus, older adults continue to represent the highest proportion of sedentary adults, despite their knowledge of the widespread health benefits associated with PA and exercise or even their intentions to engage in such behaviors. Consequently, the benefits of PA and exercise are not being fully realized and health problems perpetuate. Developing evidence-based interventions that establish sustained changes in MVPA and exercise behaviors in older adults is a major public health priority, but this requires going beyond social-cognitive constructs. The broad goal of my dissertation is to advance scientific understanding about the neural systems associated with changes in MVPA behaviors among sedentary older adults. Emerging evidence indicates that nonconscious processes also regulate exercise behaviors, stemming from accumulated affective responses from past exercise experiences (e.g., pleasant vs unpleasant). Grounded by current understanding about affect's role on decision-making, the present study hypothesized that physiological changes induced by single bouts of PA serve as somatic markers in the brain that guide future PA-related behaviors. Specifically, my dissertation extended previous research by testing whether acute exercise responses in affect-related brain systems predict PA behavior change following a 3-month exercise intervention. This hypothesis is supported by prior research indicating that self-reported changes in affect (i.e., pleasant/unpleasant feelings) during moderate-intensity exercise reliably predicts future MVPA behavior. The results of my dissertation advances previous findings by investigating how these affective responses to exercise are represented in the brain and how they relate to PA behavior change. I tested my central hypothesis through the following two specific aims: In Specific Aim 1, I investigated whether the acute physiological and neural responses to exercise were related to the subjective experience of exercise in older adults. Healthy, low-active, older participants (N = 34, Age = 67.2 years, 21 females) completed an acute exercise procedure consisting of two within-subjects exercise conditions occurring on separate counter-balanced sessions. During the active condition, participants cycled at a moderate intensity (65% of maximum heart rate), and during the passive condition, their legs were moved by motorized pedals on the same machine and at the same pedal rate as in the active condition. To investigate exercise-related changes in brain function, functional MRI scans were acquired before and after the acute exercise. Additionally, salivary samples were collected throughout the experiment to provide objective biomarkers that have been linked with psychological changes. Finally, participants provided self-reported changes in affect. I found that acute exercise was associated with increases in salivary markers of sympathetic activity and decreases in salivary cortisol levels with no significant differences between conditions. Acute exercise also resulted in observable increases in positive affect with no differences between conditions. Finally, no observable acute exercise-related changes in functional connectivity occurred. In Specific Aim 2, I identified predictors of exercise behavior change from objectively-measured biomarkers and neural systems that are acutely responsive to exercise. After completing the acute exercise sessions, participants began a 3-month supervised exercise intervention. To assess intervention-related changes in unsupervised PA behavior, participants wore a PA monitoring device for 7 days before and immediately after the intervention. Individuals who exhibited a stronger acute functional connectivity response between nucleus accumbens (NAcc) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) before the intervention were more likely to increase their unsupervised levels of MVPA after the intervention. Given the role of NAcc-mPFC circuitry in affect-based decision making and self-referential processing, the present findings suggest that enhanced cognitive appraisal and awareness of affective changes are related to more sustained changes in long term behavior. This study is the first to demonstrate neurobiological evidence supporting the relationship between positive affective responses to acute exercise and long-term changes in exercise behavior. This research advocates the utility of affect-based measures in tailoring exercise interventions for sedentary older adults.

Many supervisory control systems require the operator to solve any problems that the system's automation cannot accommodate. Consequently, this class of systems would benefit from designs and methods which improve operator problem solving performance. Currently, human factors researchers develop designs and methods emphasizing the cognitive capacities and abilities of operators. For the most part, these approaches neglect the emotional state of the operator, although emotion has been shown to have an important impact on performance in many other domains. This dissertation introduces the modified Multidimensional Problem Solving (m-MPS) Model, a theoretical model predicting how affect, one aspect of emotion, will influence problem solving performance. The model was tested in an experiment in which 32 participants attempted to correct a series of 5 bugs in a computer program. During their task, they received compiler messages with keywords specifically chosen to create a positive or negative affective state. The model predicted that the participants with messages designed to increase positive affect would seek solutions with a more divergent thought process, and this would be indicated with a more diverse set of problem-solving approaches, along with higher scores on a divergent thought measuring test administered throughout the experiment. Those with less positive affect would seek solutions in a smaller, less creative space and demonstrate less divergent thought. Unfortunately, the feedback messages did not appear to evoke an emotional response powerful enough to create a measurable change in emotional state. However, the messages did affect various aspects of the participants' performance in ways consistent with the model, including fewer repeated solutions with increasing divergent thought scores (F(1,423) = 12.39, p < 0.01) and the probability of continuing the problem solving process declines with each unsuccessful attempt (Z = -2.98, p = 0.003). The most compelling result was that participants receiving the negative messages were significantly less likely to successfully complete the problem-solving task (Wald Χ2 = 4.06, p = 0.044). These results suggest that in human-computer interactions, messages are an important factor in creative problem solving performance. Further research is necessary to determine the source of these effects in supervisory control interfaces.

Latin American film comedies, from the early sound period until the beginnings of the aesthetic and political New Cinemas (1930-1960), mediated modernity in diverse national contexts through affective and aesthetic tactics that shifted the spectator position in the narrative. These film comedies functioned in a mode of "critical realism" that produced historical self-awareness and foregrounded the geopolitical extension and uneven development of modernity. The comedian comedies of Mario "Cantinflas" Moreno (Mexico), Niní Marshall and Luis Sandrini (Argentina), and Oscarito and Grande Otelo (Brazil) demonstrate not only what kind of "peripheral humor" operated within - and traveled beyond - the national context, but also what this kind of humorous social critique reveals about the capacity of film to move viewers, by means of affect, into positions of critical opposition in the public sphere. By examining the linguistic play of these comedians, this study demonstrates four aspects of Latin American comedy that operate via embodiment and spatio-temporal location. First, Cantinflismo had as its basis not merely word play and non-sense, but misdirection, an evasive spatial practice which positioned the viewer to resist social hierarchies within and beyond the nation. Second, Marshall's multiple radio and film characters and her vocal stardom constituted an auditory map of Buenos Aires that created a different spatial intelligibility for her auditors. Third, Sandrini's stutter produced multiple temporalities that, in turn, positioned the audience itself to do a double take regarding its relation to the film text and its location within the standardized time of modernity. Fourth, the palimpsestic parody of the Brazilian chanchanda by Oscarito and Grande Otelo produced an awareness of historicity in a critically realist vein. Taken together, these four parallel examples of comedic practice demonstrate how Latin American film comedies produced a critically proximate spectator capable of perceiving and organizing space and time differently. Affirming that the study of popular film genres should be seen neither as derivate of foreign models nor as defensive authentic cultural expression, the thesis argues that articulating Miriam Hansen's concept of vernacular modernism to Angel Rama's concept of transculturation yields an understanding of popular cinema as a cultural practice of embodiment that foregrounds the differentiated responses to modernization. Furthermore, by re-reading the theories of realism of Gyorgy Lukács and Siegfried Kracauer and the theories of mimesis and innervation of Walter Benjamin through the critical lenses of Henri Bergson and debates about realism in the Latin American literary boom, this study demonstrates how the humor is contingent on thinking within a particular historical context and becoming part of a located collective body. These film comedies produce a critically proximate humorous spectator moved in laughter to examine his/her relation to the film text and his/her historical and geopolitical location within a cultural landscape marked by economic dependency.

Orientador: Dolores Cristina Gomes Galindo / Resumo: Esta tese tem por objetivo relacionar o Apadrinhamento Afetivo com a Roda de Capoeira Nação Cultural, localizada no Vale do Ribeira, São Paulo, Brasil. O Apadrinhamento Afetivo do tipo informal compôs com as múltiplas deficiências experienciadas tanto pela pesquisadora como pelos demais participantes da Roda de Capoeira. Com inspiração na obra Borderlands: the new mestiza, de Gloria Anzaldúa, deu-se um processo de escrita marcado por estados fronteiriços de existência, originando a mestiçagem desta produção. A partir daí, percebeu-se a formação de três Rodas: a Roda dos Enjeitados, a Roda de Capoeira e a Roda da Academia, e tais rodas contribuíram, com suas curvas e entrelaçamentos, na composição da espiral dos mestiços. Este processo de Apadrinhamento Afetivo Informal se mostrou consistente enquanto estratégia de afirmação da vida, e tal abordagem, composta por muitas mãos, braços, próteses, pernas, cadeiras de rodas e vozes, pôde contribuir para a construção de um olhar inovador sobre o Apadrinhamento Afetivo e a deficiência. / Resumen: Esta investigación tiene por objetivo relacionar el Apadrinamiento Afectivo y la Rueda de Capoeira “Nacion Cultural” que ocorrió en un pueblo del Valle del Ribeira, estado de São Paulo, Brasil. Con inspiración en la obra Borderlands: the new mestiza, de Gloria Anzaldúa, se dio la mescla narrativa a partir de la relación de apadrinamiento entre los miembros de la Rueda de Capoeira y las escritas distintivas de la investigadoray tanbiem a la vivencia comunitaria sobre la discapacidad. La experiencia de la Rueda se ha ampliado para tres ruedas diferenciadas, la Rueda de Los Rechazados, La Rueda de Capoeira, la Rueda de la Universidad. En el proceso de escrita de las limitaciones impuestas por estados fronterizos de existencia, se percibe que el Apadrinamiento Afectivo Informal y las escritas se abren como metodologías de afirmación de la vida, haciendo, con la participación de las tres ruedas,la espiral de los mestizos. Tales metodologías, hechas com muchas manos, brazos, prótesis, piernas, sillas de ruedas y voces, construyeron tecnologías circulares de la diversidad, con el afecto conectando e invitando a la nueva vision de la Discapacidad y el Apadrinamiento. / Abstract: This research aims to relate Godmothers/Godfathers and the Wheel of Capoeira “Cultural Nation” in a municipality of the Ribeira Valley, state of São Paulo, Brazil. With inspiration in the work "Borderlands: the new mestiza", by Gloria Anzaldúa, narrative from the sponsorship relations between the members inside the Wheel of Capoeira and the researcher inside the disability’s world. The experience of Wheel has been solved in three kinds of wheel–Refused ́s Wheel, Capoeira ́s Wheel, University ́s Wheel-and extended to the community experience of disability. In the process of writing the limitations imposed by border states of existence, it is perceived that Affective Sponsorship and odd narratives as life affirmation methodologies, spiraling the mestizo’s loop and building the concept about Informal Godfathering. Such methodologies, composed of between many hands, arms, prothestics, legs, wheelchairs and voices, have an affect on viewaboutDisability and Godfathering. / Doutor

Thesis advisor: Marjorie E. Howes / This work applies current theories of affect to inform an understanding of the role of shame in the process of narration. It begins with a dual-sided hypothesis: experiences of humiliation and its consequence, shame, can initiate and mediate a narrative act, and the narrative process can immediately or over time mitigate and even eliminate the negative feelings of shame. The project particularly draws upon the pioneering affect theories of Silvan S. Tomkins to focus upon the life and written works of Willa Cather. It discovers and traces a poetics of shame as it occurs throughout the narratives she produced over a lifetime. It highlights how the Cathers’ forced migration from Virginia to Nebraska resulted in a loss of class and status as well as alterations in family dynamics. These disruptions created the foundations for her perceived humiliations and the shame that motivated her use of recurrent scenes, characters, narrative resolutions and even the very language she chose. This study emphasizes the usefulness of the application of affect studies for literary criticism and cultural studies. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: English.