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In Defense Of Emotion-Based Approach To Moral Motivation, Yifan Wang

Philosophy Theses

Some philosophers have advanced emotion-based arguments for motivational internalism by arguing that emotions play constitutive roles in moral judgments and that emotions motivate actions. Jennifer Corns and Robert Cowan object to this approach, arguing that linking emotion and moral motivation does not help advance the debate about motivational internalism, because mental states that are paradigmatically pleasant or unpleasant, including emotions, do not necessarily motivate agents. I argue that their objections are misplaced as emotion-based accounts do not and do not have to rely on the pleasantness or unpleasantness of emotions to make the case that emotions necessarily motivate. I further …

The Politics Of Anger, Qinyi Luo

Philosophy Theses

Recently, philosophers have been giving increasing attention to the place of anger in politics. Many defenders of anger focused on the question of whether the feeling and expression of anger are appropriate or justified as individual responses to social injustices, but in this paper, I suggest that anger should also be viewed and critically examined as a social ethos. I further point out that weaponizing anger as means to political ends, or what I call “the politics of anger,” has an important limitation: it risks obstructing the cultivation of empathy society-wide that is vital for working across differences in a …

Fighting Words: How Campaign Rhetoric Elicits Emotion, Attitude Change, And Violent Encounters, Liam Hayes

Political Science Dissertations

During the most recent presidential election, campaign rhetoric frequently took on an unusually aggressive tone. This shift in tone was matched by frequent displays of violent interactions between supporters and protestors at several campaign events. Further, once violent responses were elicited, these supporters were often applauded for their behavior and offered further support. These simultaneous trends offer new opportunities to research the ways in which campaigns attempt to influence voter behavior. Specifically, it is prudent to question how candidates stylize their rhetoric to elicit stronger behavioral responses from potential voters, and the effect that these appeals have on voters. Considering …

Moved By Sad Music: Pleasure And Emotion In Sad Music Listening Experiences, Matthew Dunaway

Philosophy Theses

In this thesis, I consider the dialectic surrounding the Puzzle of Musical Tragedy i.e. why do people listen to sad music that makes them sad? I agree with Sizer (2019) that the best solutions to this puzzle construe the listening experience itself as pleasant. However, against Sizer, I argue that the feelings music induces are best construed as emotions, not moods. Since sad music can promote the perception of a sad person, I argue that music can be an unconscious object of one’s sad feelings. This suggests that sadness – not sad mood – best characterizes the experience of listening …

The Dual-Process Model And Moral Dilemmas: Reflection Does Not Drive Self-Sacrifice, David Simpson

Philosophy Theses

Greene uses evidence from psychology and neuroscience to argue that manual mode (slow, deliberative thinking) is conducive to utilitarian judgments. He further argues that these data, in conjunction with philosophical premises, lend normative support to utilitarianism. After defending Greene’s philosophical premises against critics, I contend that the current state of the evidence suggests that manual mode does not drive utilitarian responses to moral dilemmas involving self-sacrifice. I performed an experiment which replicated the positive association between cognitive reflection test (CRT) scores (which measure reliance on manual mode) and utilitarian responses to dilemmas that involved sacrificing the interests of others. However, …

The Assessment Of Cognitive Bias In Capuchin Monkeys Using A Computerized Task, Kristin French

Psychology Theses

Cognitive bias refers to the influence of affective state on the interpretation of ambiguous stimuli and has been used to assess emotional state in nonhuman animals. The current study assessed cognitive bias in 12 brown-tufted capuchin monkeys using three distinct computerized psychophysical tasks and a novel manipulation to affect that involved giving moneys gelatin foods that tasted either pleasant or unpleasant. In addition, monkeys were trained on several positive and negative training cues. Results showed that food type was not a factor in monkeys’ responses to ambiguous stimuli. Behavioral observation during test sessions revealed the unpleasant food may have acted …

Attentional Bias For Threat In Intergroup Anxiety, Michelle Rattinger

Psychology Theses

Threatening faces draw our attention with particular speed, a phenomenon commonly documented using behavioral measures such as the facial dot probe task. However, other aspects of the face that such tasks often fail to take into account, such as characteristics that signal race, also may influence threat perception. If dot probe tasks are to continue to serve as key measures of threat bias in research, we must understand whether and how the facial contexts in which angry expressions appear influence people’s attention to those expressions. The current study examined the ways in which emotional expression and facial race signifiers interact …

Good Girl: Sweaty Palms And The Smile, Nuni Lee

Art and Design Theses

My thesis exhibition “Good Girl: Sweaty Palms and the Smile” is a combination of paintings, small figurines, and a video piece illustrating the complicated emotions that arise from childhood memories and childlike impulses. My work revolves around a central figure, Good Girl. She is the reflection of me as an artist and manifests my attempt to hold on to my inner child, which is triggered by my desire to relieve her from dark emotions that she felt in her childhood. Good Girl is also a representation of a typical young girl who feels anxious about growing up. Noticeably infantile and …

Celebrities’ Climate Change Advocacy On Twitter And Its Effects On Public Perception And Behavioral Change, Sejung Park

Communication Dissertations

This research adds the growing body of literature on the role of celebrities as emergent spokespersons in climate advocacy and the process and consequences of its effects on public attitudes and behaviors to resolve the climate crisis. By applying social cognitive theory in conjunction with emotional appeals and language styles as message frames, the study examines the effects of role-modeling in adoption of eco-attitudes and behaviors. In a 2 x 2 design, the independent variables were emotion frame (fear, hope) and celebrity involvement frame (first person pronouns; FPP, non-first person pronouns; NFPP). For the manipulation check, the tweets were pilot …

Negatively Biased Facial Affect Discernment And Socially Inhibited Behavior In Middle Childhood, Sarah Elizabeth Garcia

Psychology Dissertations

Negatively biased facial affect discernment may prompt socially inhibited behavior. Characterizing normative patterns of facial affect discernment across emotions and expression intensity during middle childhood will help to identify subtle, yet meaningful, deviations that may emerge for individuals and potentially negatively impact their social behavior. Facial affect discernment for happy, sad, and angry expressions across low, medium, and high intensities and parent-reported socially inhibited behavior were measured in this study in a sample of 7-10 year-old children (N = 80; 53% female). Discernment accuracy improved with increased expression intensity for all emotions. Specifically, we found a quartic effect for …

Misogynists Have Feelings, Too: An Analysis Of Circulating Affect In The Red Pill, Samantha Pinson Wrisley

Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Theses

This thesis is a critical discourse analysis that seeks to identify and understand the various affects circulating within the anti-feminist, reactionary group, The Red Pill. The central argument is that, despite The Red Pill’s desire to cultivate an emotionless “essential masculine,” affect is made visible in these environments when it moves or circulates in the form of emotionally charged discourse.

Knowing How You Feel: The Structure And Importance Of Emotional Self-Knowledge, Robert Boudreau

Philosophy Theses

The aim of this thesis is to offer up a structure of what I call Emotional Self-Knowledge—roughly, knowledge of one’s own emotions. I begin with a broad understanding of an emotion event, according to which emotion events include a set of bodily feelings in response to some object. I then argue that knowledge of the object and the feeling of the emotion are required parts of knowing one’s own emotions if we expect emotional self-knowledge to be prudentially useful. I then outlining three levels of emotional self. The first requires knowledge of the feeling on is experiencing; the second requires …

The Role Of Regret And Its Applications In Is Decision Making, Eunhee Park

Computer Information Systems Dissertations

Although IS studies have begun to recognize the role of emotion in decision making, the research in this area is still in its infancy. The exploration of IS decision making phenomena through the lens of regret can offer rich implications to both research and practice. The presence of regret, for instance, can explain how and why IS decision makers choose a certain option. Motivated by the gap in the literature, the three papers in this dissertation investigate the role of regret in decision making in IS contexts. Specifically, the three projects investigate the following: IT real options decision in the …

The Effectiveness Of Emotional Motivational Feedback Messages, Firat Sarsar

Middle-Secondary Education and Instructional Technology Dissertations

An important technique for learning, feedback has been described as responses to students’ behaviors, tasks, assignments, and outcomes. In this study, the researcher used a new kind of feedback message called an Emotional Motivational Feedback Message (EMFEM). EMFEM is a feedback message which includes motivational strategies and emotional content for motivating and encouraging students to learn more and to focus on a specific topic. EMFEM is based on Visser and Keller’s (1990) motivational message design, which was influenced by Keller’s (1987) ARCS theory and emotional content strategies. Because EMFEM is primarily used in text-based, online learning environments, it is limited …

An Exploration Of The Relationship Between Academic Emotions And Goal Orientations In College Students Before And After Academic Outcomes, Stephanie L. Dietz

Psychology Dissertations

In this dissertation, the intersection between emotion and motivation was explored. Participants in this study were given a survey at two time points during the semester. Using this data, the factor structure for the motivation construct as described by Elliot and colleagues were explored using a MTMM model. Leading from the measurement model from the CFA, results indicated that emotion and motivation are highly related, but in different ways depending on if the students have had academic feedback. The academic feedback also may change some students’ motivational orientations, based on their emotional reaction.

The Good, The Bad, And The Funny: A Neurocognitive Study Of Laughter As A Meaningful Socioemotional Cue, Richard Amoss

Psychology Dissertations

Laughter is a socioemotional cue that is characteristically positive and historically served to facilitate social bonding. Like other communicative gestures (e.g., facial expressions, groans, sighs), however, the interpretation of laughter is no longer bound to a particular affective state. Thus, an important question is how basic psychological mechanisms, such as early sensory arousal, emotion evaluation, and meaning representation, contribute to the interpretation of laughter in different contexts. A related question is how brain dynamic processes reflect these different aspects of laughter comprehension.

The present study addressed these questions using event-related potentials (ERP) to examine laughter comprehension within a cross-modal priming …

How Music Makes Us Feel, Alexander Economides

Philosophy Theses

According to folk psychology, instrumental music regularly elicits emotions in listeners. Philosophers and psychologists such as Kivy, Konecni and Zangwill have questioned the existence of these musically elicited emotions, arguing that instrumental music elicits moods or aesthetic judgments rather than emotions. I defend the folk psychological position against these skeptics. The first chapter sets up the debate surrounding musically elicited emotions, while chapters two and three defend the thesis that instrumental music elicits emotions against the critics’ arguments. Chapter four outlines the implications of this defense for a variety of fields.

Why Do People Seek Negative Emotions' A Solution To Hume's Puzzle, William J. Brady

Philosophy Theses

In his 1757 essay “Of Tragedy”, Hume reflected on a curious puzzle about emotions. Sometimes people seek out emotions or experiences that are typically negative and associated with displeasure or pain. People often desire to watch horror films that will make them scared or listen to music that will make them sad. Some people even engage in the pursuit of negative emotions on a regular basis such as in the case of thrill-seeking. In this paper my goal is to update Hume’s puzzle with empirical evidence from the affective sciences and argue for two conclusions. First I will argue that …

A Test Of Prinz's Air Theory: Is Attention Sufficient For Conscious Emotion?, Anais F. Stenson

Philosophy Theses

Jesse Prinz proposes that attended intermediate-level representations (AIRs) are sufficient for conscious awareness. He extends this claim to emotion, arguing that attention is the mechanism that separates conscious from unconscious emotions. Prior studies call this entailment into question. However, they do not directly address the intermediate-level requirement, and thus cannot decisively refute the AIR theory of consciousness. This thesis tests that theory by manipulating participants’ attention to different features of subliminally processed words while recording both behavioral and electroencephalogram (EEG) data. Both measures suggest that subliminally processed stimuli are attended according to participants’ conscious intention to complete a task. In …

2008 U.S. Presidential Election: Persuasive Youtube Interactions About War, Health Care, And The Economy, Lindsey Zimmerman

Psychology Theses

Persuasive appeals posted to United States presidential candidates’ YouTube videos were coded using a grounded theory mixed-methods design. 37,562 comments about education, energy, Iraq, health care, the economy, and the presidential debates were randomly collected by date and time for three studies using coding analysis: pilot, presidential primaries, and the presidential election. Seven argument types were identified and theoretically refined according to dual process models of persuasion: reason-based, candidate-based, emotion-based, endorsements, enthusiasmheuristic, other-interest and self-interest. Theoretical comparisons and hypothesis testing of argument types were conducted by issue and election event. Consistent with impression involvement, reason-based appeals were more frequent during …

Frontal Alpha And Beta Eeg Power Asymmetry And Iowa Gambling Task Performance, Richard Toby Amoss

Psychology Theses

Frontal electroencephalographic (EEG) alpha (α) asymmetry may index the activation of lateralized affect and motivation systems in humans. Resting EEG activation was measured and its relationship to Iowa gambling task (IGT) performance was evaluated. No effects were found for α power asymmetry. However, beta (β) power asymmetry, an alternative measure of resting EEG activation, was associated with the number of risky decisions made in the early portion of the task. Additionally, IGT deck selection patterns suggest there are at least three distinct performance styles in healthy individuals. Interestingly, β power asymmetry contradicts performance predictions based on accepted frontal asymmetry affect …

Ethnic And Racial Differences In Emotion Perception, Linda Cheng

Psychology Honors Theses

This study analyzed racial differences in the way African Americans and Caucasians perceive emotion from facial expressions and tone of voice. Participants were African American (n=25) and Caucasian (n=26) college students. The study utilizes 56 images of African American and Caucasian faces balanced for race and sex from the NimStim stimulus set (Tottenham, 2006). The study also utilized visual and auditory stimuli form the DANVA2. Participants were asked to judged emotion for each stimulus in the tasks. The BFRT, the WASI, and the Seashore Rhythm test were used as exclusionary criteria. In general the study found few differences in the …