Thesis (Honors)--College of William and Mary, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 30-34). Also available via the World Wide Web.

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I argue that a specific version of Theory theory is necessary and sufficient for attributions and predictions of others' emotions. Theory theory is the view that we attribute and predict others' mental states on the basis of a (tacit) body of generalisations about mental states, their situational input, and behavioural output. Theory's antagonist, Simulation theory, is the view that we ascribe mental states to others by simulating - or running ' off-line ' - their doxastic, emotional, and contextual situations. My argument for Theory's necessity and sufficiency develops in three stages: First, I show that some version of Theory is necessary for predictions of all mental states on the basis of the ascriber's knowledge of the subject's other mental states. The linchpin of the arguments here consists of considerations from relevant similarity between the ascriber's and the subject's mental states. Simulation cannot provide criteria for such similarity, and so, I argue, predictions must advert to Theory. Second, I develop a sui generis model of emotions, according to which (i) emoticns' necessary objects and typical causes are concern-based construals; and (ii) emotions qua attitudes are (a) complex states embedded in a narrative structure, (b) characterised in terms of their object, their expressive behaviour, and their phenomenology. Third, I show that, considering the nature of the objects of emotions, some Theory is necessary for emotion-predictions and -attributions. Moreover, I develop a version of Theory, based on my analysis of emotions and narrative structures, and argue that this version of Theory is both necessary and sufficient for emotion-predictions and -attributions.

Abstract The current theses is concerned with the Upper Secondary School students school contentment as it functions in total personality and its connection to values. Personality is seen as a combination of cognition, emotions and actions. Contentment is the functioning of personality. The three basic components mentioned above appear on all levels of personality: concepts, manners, attitudes, norms and values. Primarily in this reseach, the connection of values is regarded in the relation to the school contentment of the upper secondary school students. The third main task is to examine if contentment can be supported by general ?humane values, i.e. if humanization can improve the contentment in the upper seconday school. Humanization is seen as a process of growing up as a human being. The subjects of this research are 799 second class students of upper secndary schools. The cognitions and life values of upper secondary school students are already getting differentiated. Thus, the part that values play in the school contentment is examined in the current report. The aim is to examine whether school contentment apprears as total personal or whether some component is more dominent than the others. Values are national and universal. The aim is to find general human factors of different values, which would be the basis for building the realization and contentment of total personality. According to the research results, school contentment appears threefold and on layers. The strongest area of contentment is emotions, the weakest cognitions. The emotional area of contentment is an expression of ego, cognitions express clearness and cognitional content and action expresses the realization of cognition and emotions in practice. Thus school contentment is the realization of total personality. Contentment is shown by cognitive clearness, receiving and allowing emotions and the realization of these mental basic areas in actions. Those who are contented with upper secondary school favour politically conservative and universal values. Self realization is limited by the norms and culture of the community. Values dont appear, however, balanced but their components, cognitions, emotions and action are even partly illustrations. Mostly, this is due to social pressure to act in accordance with general permission. Values, too, appear in three parts, so that in all value groups, the main areas are congnitions (human dignity), emotions (tolerance) and action (ethics). School contentment is not much explained by the school progress of the student and the basic education of his or her father. Contentment is equal with girls and boys. It is, in general, similar in all upper secondary schools. About 40% of the upper secondary school students have quite good contentment, one third poor. According to this research, school contentment can be built, with good reason, on general human values. Therefore, the functions of information have to be revealed and the emotions connected with them have to be accepted. The condition for this is that school socialization is built in a general, human direction. The attitude to learning has to be cognitive. Emotions will be connected in time with the meanings of words, with the spontanous experience of the individual, naturally weak. The safegarding of learning abilities and learning equipment is of primary importance. Students themselves look for experiences in the culture they face. Upper secondary school studies have to be scholarly. The personal contentment and action of individuals is made possible by the humane athmosphere of the school community. Humanization is a good basis for contentment. The lack of contentment appears as defensiveness, which would be a suitable theme for further research. / Tiivistelmä Väitöskirjatutkimuksessa selvitellään lukiolaisten kouluviihtyvyyttä kokonaispersoonallisuuden toimivuutena ja sen yhteyttä arvoihin. Persoonallisuus nähdään ajattelun, tunteiden ja toimintojen muodostamana kokonaisuutena. Mainitut kolme peruskomponenttia ilmenevät persoonallisuuden kaikilla tasoilla: käsitteissä, tavoissa, asenteissa, normeissa ja arvoissa. Tutkimuksessa selvitetään lukiolaisten kouluviihtyvyyden suhdetta arvoihin. Kolmas päätehtävä on tutkia, voidaanko viihtyvyyttä tukea yleisin, humaanein arvoin eli voidaanko humanisaatiolla edistää lukioviihtyvyyttä. Humanisaatio nähdään ihmiseksi kasvamisen prosessina. Koehenkilöinä on 799 lukion toisluokkalaista. Tiedot koottiin kyselylomakkeilla. Halutaan tutkia, esiintyykö kouluviihtyvyys kokonaispersoonallisena vai onko jokin viihtyvyyden alueista muita hallitsevampi. Arvot ovat kansallisia ja universaaleja. Erilaisista arvoista pyritään löytämään yleisiä ihmistä koskevia tekijöitä, joiden varaan kokonaispersoonallisuuden todentumista ja viihtyvyyttä voitaisiin rakentaa. Tutkimuksen tulosten mukaan kouluviihtyvyys ilmenee kolmijakoisena ja kerroksittain. Vahvin viihtyvyyden osa-alue ovat tunteet, heikoin ajattelu. Viihtyvyyden tunnealue ilmentää itsetuntoa, kognitiot kuvaavat selkeyttä ja ajatuksellista tyytyväisyyttä sekä toiminnot ajattelun ja tunteiden todentamista käytännössä. Kouluviihtyvyys on siis kokonaispersoonallisuuden todentumisen ilmentäjä. Kognitiivinen selkeys, tunteiden saaminen ja salliminen, sekä näiden henkisten perusalueiden realisoituminen persoonallisina aktioina ilmentävät viihtyvyyttä. Lukiossa viihtyvät suosivat oikeistolaisia ja universaaleja arvoja. Toimintayhteisön normisto ja kulttuuri rajaavat itsensä toteuttamista. Arvot eivät ilmene oppilaan mielessä kuitenkaan tasapainoisina, vaan niiden komponentit, kognitiot, emootiot ja toiminta, ovat osin jopa erimerkkisiä. Useimmiten tämä johtuu sosiaalisesta paineesta toimia yleisen suotavuuden suuntaisesti. Tunteet hallitsevat ajattelua liikaa. Myös arvot esiintyvät kolmiosaisina. Kaikissa arvoryhmissä painoalueina ovat kognitiot (ihmisarvoisuus), emootiot (suvaitsevaisuus) ja toiminnot (eettisyys). Koulumenestys ja oppilaan isän pohjakoulutus eivät juuri selitä kouluviihtyvyyttä. Tytöt ja pojat viihtyvät yhtä hyvin. Kouluviihtyvyys on yleensä samanlaista kaikissa lukioissa. Noin 40 % lukiolaisista ilmaisee viihtyvänsä aika hyvin, heikonlaisesti viihtyviä on kolmannes. Tämän tutkimuksen mukaan viihtyvyyttä voidaan rakentaa perustellusti yleisten humaanien arvojen varaan. Tietojen funktiot tulee siksi paljastaa ja niihin liittyvät tunteet hyväksyä. Tämä edellyttää koulun sosialisaation kehittämistä yleiseen, inhimilliseen suuntaan. Opittaviin asioihin tulee suuntautua kognitiivisesti. Tunteet liittyvät aikanaan sanojen tarkoitteisiin yksilön oman kokemuksen myötä luonnollisen laimeina. Oppimisvalmiuksien ja oppimisen välineiden turvaaminen on ensisijaista. Opiskelijat itse hakevat elämyksensä kohtaamastaan kulttuurista. Lukiossa on syytä opiskella tieteellisesti. Kouluyhteisön humaani ilmapiiri mahdollistaa yksilöiden persoonallisen viihtyvyyden ja toiminnan. Humanisaatio on hyvä viihtyvyyden perusta. Viihtymättömyys ilmenee defensiivisyytenä, joka olisikin sopiva jatkotutkimuksen aihe.

M.Phil. / Everybody wants to experience happiness, prosperity and good health. Today's demands and pressures make it very difficult to experience well-being in our work environment and personal life. Symptoms like stress, negative attitude, depression, aggression and low productivity are visible. All these symptoms have an influence on the human body and emotions. Psychosomatic illnesses like depression, stress, heart disease, high blood pressure, asthma and back and shoulder pains are common phenomena. The question is what can a person do, in spite of the circumstances, to achieve personal well-being and healthiness. The aim of this study is to investigate the influence of some emotions on personal well-being, specifically the influence of stress as an unhealthy emotion and laughter and humor as healthy emotions. The specific research questions are: 1. What is the effect of stress, as an unhealthy emotion, on a human's wellbeing? 2. What is the effect of laughter and humor, as healthy emotions, on a human's well-being? 3. What are the benefits that laughter and humor, as healthy emotions, have for personal wellbeing and healthiness? The research programme entails the following: Chapter one gives a general orientation of the study. The second chapter focuses on the influence of stress as an unhealthy emotion on personal well-being while chapter three deals with the influence of laughter and humor as healthy emotions on personal well-being. In chapter four the characteristics of a personal and professional leader as well as the main life domains are investigated. Chapter five concludes the research with a summary, findings and conclusion. 2. METHOD OF APPROACH A descriptive research strategy was followed in this study. A descriptive research study is a systematic, accurate and factual description of something, in this case the influence of some emotions on personal well-being, for the sake of better understanding, insight and informativeness (Smith, 1993:35). The prevalent research methods used were studies of existing literature available in this field as well as concept and phenomena analyses. 3. RESEARCH FINDINGS The research findings are as follows: Stress has a physiological and a psychological influence on the human body and has been shown to affect almost all body systems, resulting in cardiovascular disease, neuromuscular disorders (including migraine and chronic back pain}, respiratory and allergic disorders, immunologic disorders, gastrointestinal disturbances (including peptic ulcer disease, irritable bowel syndrome, nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea), skin disease, dental problems, and a host of other disorders (Hafen, 1996:44). Laughter and humor have, because of the physiological changes that take place, a big impact in terms of physical benefits (including respiratory activity, oxygen exchange, heartrate, and toning the cardiovascular system), pain relief, (arthritis, gout, back and shoulder pain), immunity-enhancing and psychological benefits (stress relieve, bestowing a sense of power, giving new perspective). By applying specific suggestions how to use laughter and humor as healthy emotions from a Personal and Professional Perspective it is possible to achieve personal well-being and healthiness.

What does driving a sports car have to do with a first kiss, shopping in New York or purchasing a pair of designer shoes? These comparisons were used in a recent ad campaign for the Alfa Romeo Spider and are prime examples of an experiential analogy. The predominance of experiential analogies in recent advertisements suggests that they are persuasive. Yet understanding what comes to mind when consumers process these comparisons remains to be investigated. By drawing on analogy and consumption experience literatures, an important moderator of analogical persuasiveness is identified, preference for the base experience, and the influence of emotional knowledge transfer on consumer attitudes is explored. Substantial focus has been devoted to understanding how consumers learn and are persuaded by functional analogies. Digital cameras have been compared to computer scanners, personal digital assistants to secretaries and off-line web readers to VCRs. These functional analogies differ substantially from experiential analogies where consumers are encouraged to compare two experiences. Three studies were conducted to investigate what contributes to the persuasive effect of an experiential analogy. Study 1 explored how base preference moderates the effect of emotional knowledge transfer on consumer attitudes. The findings suggest that an analogy is maximally persuasive for those who like the experience that an advertised product is compared to and cognitively associate a high number of emotions with the advertised product. In Study 2, a cognitive load manipulation was used to provide additional support for the effect of emotional knowledge transfer and base preference on consumer attitudes. Study 3 explored another important moderator, emotional soundness, specific to the persuasiveness of an experiential analogy. The findings from Study 3 further replicated the effect of base preference and emotional knowledge transfer on consumer attitudes and demonstrate that there needs to be sufficient underlying similarities in order for one to infer that the comparison experience and the advertised target product would have emotions in common with one another. The role of affect in the processing of an experiential analogy was also investigated. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

L'objectif de ce travail est de préciser le devenu des capacités d'identification, de mémorisation des émotions et d'évaluation de I' intensité des émotions avec l'avancée en âge, mais également lors de la survenue et de l'évolution de la démence de type Alzheimer (DTA). Notre travail s'inscrit dans le cadre des théories cognitives de l'évaluation et des modèles bidimensionnels des émotions prenant en compte la valence et l'intensité. Nous avons réalisé une pré-étude auprès de 42 adultes jeunes âgés de 20,74 ans (*1,75), afin de construire et valider notre matériel expérimental. Outre la valence émotionnelle (positive, négative et neutre), nous avons souhaité évaluer l'impact d'autres facteurs comme le contexte (items isolés versus items en contexte) et le type de présentation des items (verbal versus visuel versus auditif). Notre population d'études est composée de 4 groupes : 20 adultes jeunes âgés de 25,15 ans (i2,74), 20 adultes sains âgés de 74,5 ans (*5,21) [MMS=29,55 (I2,02)], 20 adultes présentant une DTA à un stade léger [MMS=24,2 (12,02)] figés de 77,5 ans (+6,04) et 20 adultes présentant une DTA à un stade modéré [MMS=18 (*1,34)] âgés de 77,85 ans (;t5,69). Nos principaux résultats permettent de retrouver dans le vieillissement cognitif normal et pathologique, la persistance de l'effet booster de la valence émotionnelle sur les capacités d'identification et de mémorisation, malgré la baisse progressive de ces capacités. Nous avons également mis en évidence la présence d'un effet de positivité sur les capacités d'identification et d'un effet de négativité sur les performances de mémorisation dans le vieillissement cognitif normal et qui perdure dans la DTA, quel que soit le degré de sévérité de la pathologie. Ces résultats sont discutés par rapport aux données de la Socioemotional Selectivity Theory de Carstensen (1993). Des pistes de prise en charge sont envisagées afin d'améliorer la qualité de vie des patients souffrant d'une DTA. / The aim of this study was to assess the evolution of the ability to identify, memorise and evaluate intensity of emotions with advancing age, and also after onset and evolution of Alzheimer's-type dementia (ATD). Our work is performed in the framework of cognitive theory on the evaluation of emotions, and bidirnensional modelling of emotions, takmg into account valence and intensity. We performed a preliminary study among 42 adults aged 20.74zt1.75 years, to construct and validate our experimental material. Apart from emotional valence (positive, negative or neutral), we sought to evaluate the impact of other factors, such as context (isolated items vs items in context), and the mode of presentation of the items (verbal vs visual vs auditory). Our study population comprises 4 groups: 20 young adults, aged 25.15h2.74 years; 20 healthy adults of mean age 74.515.21 years and mean Mini Mental Score (MMS) 29.55i2.02; 20 adults with mild ATD and mean MMS 24.22~2.02, mean age 77.5+6.04 years; 20 adults with moderate ATD, mean MMS 18*1.34, mean age 77.85i5.69 years. Our main results show that in both normal and pathological cognitive aging, the booster effect of emotional valence persists as regards ability to identify and memorise, despite a progressive reduction in these same capacities. We also demonstrate the existence of a positivity effect on identification çapacities, and a negativity effect on memorisation performance during normal cognitive ageing which persists in ATD, regardless of the severity of disease. These results are discussed in perspective with data from Cartensen's Socioemotional Selectivity Theory (1993). Potential therapeutic targets are envisaged, with a view to improving quality of life of patients suffering from ATD.

Love is crucial to a good human life; it animates our most meaningful relationships, and it also reveals to us what we value and who we hope to become. My research focuses on the relationship between love and valuing, and defends a version of the quality theory of love. According to quality theories, love's fittingness is determined by properties of the beloved. Quality theories face many objections. In the first part of my dissertation, I argue that five prominent objections to quality theories miss the mark. In the second part, I argue that a less-appreciated objection to quality theories, the problem of love's object, has not yet received a satisfying response. In the third part, I present a new quality theory that both avoids the problem of love's object and is independently well-motivated. Brief summaries of these three parts follow. Quality theories, again, hold that love's fittingness is determined by properties of the beloved. These theories contrast with relationship theories, on which love's fittingness is determined by features of the (substantive, historical, ongoing) relationship between lover and beloved. I motivate quality theories by arguing that loving someone and valuing a relationship are distinct phenomena, subject to different norms. I then defend quality theories in general against several objections. The most important of these is the fungibility objection: if love is fitting because of qualities of the beloved, then the lover should gladly swap out a loved one for a qualitatively similar other. I argue that this objection rests on the moralistic fallacy, which involves treating norms extrinsic to an emotion-e.g. moral or prudential norms-as if they were intrinsic to it. I show how the quality theory can accommodate the importance of loyalty to relationships without requiring the impossible - that our loved ones be the most fitting of all possible candidates. Next, I turn to an objection that is harder to answer than most quality theorists allow, the problem of love's object. Briefly, if we love people on the basis of certain of their properties, then our love must be for these properties, not for the person who has them. Some (Delaney, Keller) respond to this problem by distinguishing the ground from the object of love: even if some of the beloved's properties ground love-i.e. make it fitting-the beloved as a whole is nevertheless the object of love. I argue that the ground/object distinction is no more than a narrow, technical fix. To address the problem meaningfully, the quality theorist must explain why the object of love is also valued by love. Kolodny attempts such an explanation, but implausibly maintains that the beloved is valued only extrinsically. Others (Velleman, Badhwar) respond to the fungibility objection and the problem of love's object together, by making the beloved's "true self" both the object and the ground of love. This is more promising, but neither account works; in answering the fungibility objection, each winds up still vulnerable to the problem of love's object. Finally, I propose a new quality theory that answers the problem of love's object and is independently well-motivated. I argue that in loving someone, we value them for qualities attributable to them as an organic unity, not for qualities that constitute merely a part of them. That is, love does not value some aspect of a person, like her wit or good looks; rather, love is a way of seeing the whole person as possessing some valuable property, such as beauty or goodness, that is attributable to organic unities. This general approach has many advantages. It allows the quality theorist to say that love intrinsically values the whole person, because the valuable property is attributable only to the beloved as a whole, not merely to some of her parts. It also explains why love is fitting, because the properties in question really are worthy of a positive emotional response. Finally, because the valuable property needn't depend on common base properties, the organic unity view offers an expansive account of what we might fittingly love.

The exact properties of the interaction between emotional drives and other psychological phenomena is still a vastly unexplored field. The purpose of this paper will be to examine further the effects of one of these emotional drives, that of fear, on task performance, and to explore some of the theoretical conceptualizations already put forth regarding this interaction.