<p> This study explored energy-related attitudes and energy-saving behaviors that are no- or low-cost and relatively simple to perform. This study relied on two data sources: a longitudinal but cross-sectional survey of 4,102 U.S. residents (five biennial waves of this survey were conducted from 2002 to 2010) and a 2010 cross-sectional survey of 2,000 California residents. These two surveys contained data on two no- and low-cost behaviors: changing thermostat setting to save energy (no-cost behavior) and CFL installation behavior (low-cost behavior). In terms of attitudes, two attitudinal measures emerged from these data following a Cronbach's alpha and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA): the pro-environmental attitude and concern for the energy use in the U.S. society. These two attitudes, along with other socio-demographic and external factors (home ownership, weather, price of energy, etc.), were examined to assess whether attitude-behavior relationships persisted over time, were more prominent across certain groups, or were constrained by income or other socio-demographic factors. Three theoretical viewpoints of how attitudes may relate to behavior guided the analysis on how attitudes and contextual factors may inter-relate either directly or through a moderator variable to affect thermostat-setting and CFL installation behavior.</p><p> Results from these analyses revealed four important patterns. First, a relationship between the pro-environmental attitude and the two behaviors (thermostat-setting and CFL installation behavior) was weak but persistent across time. Second, financial factors such as income moderated the pro-environmental attitude and CFL installation relationship, indicating that the pro-environmental attitude could influence the behavior in those situations where financial resources are sufficient to comfortably allow the consumer to participate. Third, this study documented that most people reported changing thermostat settings to save energy or having one or more CFLs in their homes. This finding suggests that organizations, policy makers, or energy efficiency program administrators may want to assess whether they should pursue these two behaviors further, since they appear to be very common in the U.S. population. Last, this study showed that thermostat-setting and CFL installation behavior have multi-factorial influences; many factors in addition to attitudes were significantly associated with these behaviors, and all these factors together explained no more than 16% of behavioral variance. This suggested that if energy-saving behaviors are a function of many different variables, of which none appear to be the "silver bullet" in explaining the behaviors (as noted in this study), then policy analysis should explore a broader number of causal pathways and entertain a wider range of interventions to influence consumers to save energy.</p>

Thesis advisor: Donnah Canavan / Social Energy is an intrinsically attractive, energy generating, and genuinely satisfying construct that occurs when two people who are intrinsically motivated towards a common interest form a relationship over that interest. The following study was conducted to test a new branch of this construct, Imagined Social Energy Relationships. It was believed that this type of relationship would be perceived to lead people to feel less lonely, disconnected, and betrayed and more fulfilled, purposive, validated, understood, and energized than an individual who is depicted as having a strong interest and no one to share it with or a person who originally has this kind of relationship and then loses it. It was also believed that people who feel very strongly connected to their interests and/or are more introverted will be more likely to have personally developed Imagined Social Energy Relationships with media figures. It was found that a person with an Imagined Social Energy Relationship was described as feeling less lonely, disconnected, and betrayed, and more fulfilled, purposive, validated, understood, and energized than someone who lost this type of relationship. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2004. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Psychology. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

The ancient concept "The world is a theatre" has been used by poets and philosophers at all times when talking about human conflicts or when describing human society. By focusing on the historical function of this use, the present dissertation examines four plays by Pedro Calderón de la Barca in relation to the schism of the Swedish Wasa dynasty: El sitio de Bredá, La protestación de la fe, La vida es sueño, Afectos de odio y amor. A parallel between Calderon's "auto sacramental" El gran teatro del mundo, Descartes' so called "mask" and the Neoplatonic "Art of Memory" (Giulio Camillo, Giordano Bruno, Robert Fludd) is established in order to explore the ontological and social background of the linguistic term "discourse". The heretic picture created by the European Counter Reformation is studied as the mimetic configuration of a collective fetish. Stephen Greenblatt's notion of "social energy" and Julia Kristeva's account of the fetish in poetical language, are, in this context, discussed with the intention to investigate how Calderón, to the Spanish audience, describes Wladislav Sigismund Vasa visit to Breda's siege and Queen Christina's convertion to the Catholic faith. The political and ideological debate of laws ruling the succession in Catholic and Protestant kingdoms are considered when discussing Diego de Saavedra y Fajardo's (from Catholic Spain) and Schering Rosenhane's (from Lutheran Sweden) political reflections on the issue; this is also compared to the ideological foundations of Calderon's play El gran teatro del mundo. Both King Sigismund Vasa's personal struggle to retain the Swedish crown and Queen Christina's abdication, are considered in the light of Calderon's La protestación de la fe and Rosenhane's political vision in his Hortus Regius. A special investigation is dedicated to the striking contrasts between the original emblems of Hortus Regius and those found today in Rosenhane's palace, having been painted there on the initiative of Rosenhane himself. The Catholic agitation against Machiavelli's definition of "virtue" and the Machiavellian and Catholic interpretation of "reason of state", are related to Calderon's theatre with the intention of evaluating the geopolitical aspects of Calderon's most famous play, La vida es sueño, and also with the purpose to initiate a discussion about the theatrical nature of political behaviour. The dissertation concludes by studying and comparing Calderon's, Bernardino de Rebolledo's (Spanish ambassador to Denmark at the time) and Francisco Bances Candamo's views on Queen Christina's personal aversion to marriage, with special attention paid to the symbolic dimensions of Queen Christina's Amaranta Order.

This thesis deals with the theory of speech acts which is based mainly on analysis of speech and its function in communication. We use speech not only to convey something but to also do something, to change the state of things around us and to accomplish specific goals. Speech acts in a literary piece are then analyzed on theoretical basis, specifically in Milan Kundera's dramatic play Majitelé klíčů.