This thesis is concerned with art and emotion, and horror fiction in particular. I criticize a theoretical paradigm of emotion and art based on cognitive theories of emotion, and argue that the approach developed in this thesis is a more promising one. I shall begin by clarifying the role of affective response in our emotional engagement with art. Two dominant cognitivist accounts of art and emotion—Walton’s Make-believe Theory and Carroll’s Thought Theory—will be discussed. I position the two theories as competing solutions to Radford’s puzzle of response to fiction so as to examine the subsequent debates between them. I aim to show that the debates reach an impasse as a consequence of their ignoring affective responses in favour of cognitive states. As a result, I call for a deeper investigation of affective responses to works of art. In Chapter 2, I demonstrate that both theories fail to take formal/stylistic elements of an artwork into serious consideration and to address the power of film. In Chapter 3, I discuss problems specific to Carroll’s analysis of the horror genre. I hope to show that the flaws of his approach are rooted in a mischaracterization of the emotion “horror” as a cognitive emotion. I then set forth constraints for a more promising account of cinematic horror. One of the constraints is being able to deal with the peculiarities of horror film music and sound, which seem to be beyond the grasp of cognitivist analysis. The various drawbacks of the two cognitive theories can be traced back to their common assumption that cognitive states are necessary for emotion. So in Chapter 4 I scrutinize various forms of arguments in favour of this cognitivist view of emotion and I conclude that the view is not justified. In Chapter 5, therefore, I explore an alternative theory of emotion. Drawing mainly on works of J. Prinz and J. Robinson, I discuss an embodied appraisal theory of emotion which maintains that affective responses have primacy over cognitive states in emotion and that non-cognitive states can also trigger emotion. Taking this embodied appraisal theory of emotion as my starting point, in Chapter 6 and Chapter 7, I then develop an embodied theory of filmic emotion, on which an aesthetics of cinematic horror can be built. I defend the embodied theory in terms of its competence in providing an account of various phenomena regarding affective responses evoked by fiction, the emotive-power of stylistic/formal elements and the power of film. In the light of the embodied theory, I re-conceptualize the emotion “horror” and address the peculiarities of horror film music and sound. By demonstrating how the embodied appraisal theory of emotion contributes to a more comprehensive account of filmic emotion and a subtler aesthetic of cinematic horror, I conclude that it is a more promising theory of emotion that facilitates a proper understanding of our emotional engagement with art. / published_or_final_version / Philosophy / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Clinical Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

published_or_final_version / Psychology / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

No description available.

No description available.

The aim of this thesis was to examine the effects of people???s current moods and emotions on affective forecasting. The primary hypothesis was mood congruence: people currently feeling happy were expected to generate relatively positive affective forecasts and people currently feeling sad were expected to generate relatively negative forecasts compared to people currently in a neutral state. In addition, a moderated mood congruence hypothesis, predicted by the Affect Infusion Model (AIM, Forgas, 1995), stating that mood congruence effects are more pronounced under conditions of constructive processing, was tested. Two secondary hypotheses concerning the processing and motivational consequences of transient moods were also examined in each of the studies in this thesis. Studies 1 to 3 examined these hypotheses using a variety of manipulations of constructive processing. In Study 1, happy, neutral and sad participants made affective forecasts about a variety of everyday events, under overt instructions to process constructively or not. In Study 2, the ambiguity of the forecast was the manipulation of constructive processing. In Study 3, Need for Cognition, was used as a measure of constructive processing. Results of Studies 1-3, however, did not support either the mood congruence or the moderated mood congruence hypotheses. Further, neither of the secondary hypotheses was supported. Studies 4 and 5 examined the influence of transient high arousal emotions on affective forecasts. In Study 4, anxious or neutral people forecasted their feelings about an upcoming public speaking engagement and also rated their willingness to give a public speech. Study 5 replicated and extended Study 4 by examining how happy, sad and angry participants made those same predictions. In both Study 4 and 5, anxious people made more pessimistic forecasts and were less likely to engage in a public speech than were neutrals. This effect did not generalize to anger. Results suggest that while anxiety does have implications for affective forecasting and decision making, lower intensity moods and anger do not. Implications of these results are discussed with a focus on the benefits of an emotion-specific approach to the study of affect and affective forecasting.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of New Hampshire, 2007. / Adviser: Rebecca Warner. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2008. / Title from title screen (site viewed Oct. 31, 2008). PDF text: vii, 85 p. : ill. ; 664 K. UMI publication number: AAT 3309214. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in microfilm and microfiche formats.

Inaug.-Diss.--Friedrich-Alexander-Universität, Erlangen-Nürnberg. / At head of title: Aus dem Seminar für Geschichte der Medizin der Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Iowa, 1925. / Bibliography: p. 95-99.