Thesis (Ph.D.)--McMaster University, 2004. / Supervisor: N. Balakrishnan. Includes bibliographical references (p. 186-191).

This research seeks to understand how emotion and pleasure connect with Elton John's music. First, I argue that enjoyment of this music arises in part when on how listener's expectations for harmonic and melodic musical parameters are subverted. This research draws primarily on David Huron's theory of expectation to show how music that deviates from expected norms can be re-evaluated positively. In addition to Huron, I draw on empirical psychology studies that have determined a number of musical correspondences to emotional evocations. Throughout my analyses, I examine how specific chord placement may incite emotion for the typical listener of pop/rock music, and I contend that those specific chords and their placement reliably create emotions that are linked to enjoyment. I also find that elements like melodic contour, repetition, and perceptual salience play a significant role in shaping the listener's reactions to musical stimuli. In the second half of the dissertation, I use empirical research studies to help me address the physiological element of musical listening and enjoyment. I find that listeners use their bodies to entrain to rhythm and react to musical stimuli through laughter, tears, and frisson. Additionally, I investigate the embodiment of music and emotion through the bodily experience of Elton John as a pianist and singer. My analyses explore embodied emotional gestures on the keyboard and how those gestures bear on the listener's emotional connection to the music. Lastly, I speculate about how Elton's vocal gestures influence song expression and emotional evocation. This investigation of bodily reactions to music explores how the body might enjoy certain aspects of music and how bodily enjoyment factors into emotion. Ultimately, I argue that Elton John's music is enjoyable and incites emotion because of violation or validation of harmonic and melodic expectations, and because of emotionally laden bodily and vocal gestures perceived by the listener.

This thesis examines the effects of Culture, the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), Expectation Confirmation Theory (ECT) and Technology Readiness (TR) on the satisfaction and usage continuance intention of Internet banking customers within the Saudi Arabian context. The aim is to develop and test a new framework for use in determining the factors that affect Internet banking customers’ actual usage behaviours, with a special focus on the role of cognitive processes, and cultural and personal psychological traits. This research uses cross-sectional survey questionnaire methods within a quantitative approach. 261 valid responses were received. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used to test the hypothesised relationships within the research model in Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS 20) software. ECT is well established in conventional marketing literature and explains how cognitive beliefs and affects lead to customers’ repurchasing behaviour. It was first adopted for the Information Systems (IS) context and then customised to explain IS continuance intention behaviour. However, previous ECT customisations in the IS context present a significant knowledge gap because technology-based services are sensitive to individuals’ psychological traits, which ECT does not account for. This research integrates psychological traits and culture into the ECT framework to explain customer satisfaction and continuance intentions in the context of Internet banking usage. It combines ECT with the UTAUT in order to expand ECT to include more cognitive beliefs. Then it integrates TR and Culture to account for psychological and sociological traits. The results present a new contribution to the body of knowledge by validating a theoretically backed integration of the above models into one structural model. This model broadens the understanding of the factors that influence IS satisfaction and usage continuance intention. Compared to previous studies, the explanatory power of this model is a major improvement, with an R2 of (0.61) for usage continuance intention.