Understanding emotions, learners and achievement
Emotion is certainly one of the most neglected influencers in teaching and learning, despite its impact on many learning related processes. While we may discuss at length the role of anxiety, other facets of emotion remain all but absent from the conversation. When emotion is discussed, its role is invariably linked to mental health andContinue reading Cognition and Emotion: A complicated relationship
(Adapted from Chapter 3 of The Emotional Learner, 2017) In The Emotional Learner I presented the hypothesis that some emotions help towards the achievement of academic goals by expanding our thought processes and allowing us to invest in psychological capital. Other emotions, on the other hand, restrict these options, leading us into either-or situations (theContinue reading The problem with positive & negative emotions
Imagine you’re scaling a rock face, let’s call this particular rock face El Capitan and situate it in Yosemite National Park, California. It’s approximately 3000 feet in height and it’s a difficult climb, actually, it’s vertical. Many climbers have succeeded in climbing El Capitan, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t get scared, especially whenContinue reading Extreme Fear
(A version of this article appeared at The Huffington Post in 2016) We often view emotions as contained within the individual, sitting privately in our own minds or in the minds of others. However, emotions felt by one group or individual have a powerful influence on the emotional states of others (psychologists call this ‘affectContinue reading Why stress is contagious
I’ve discussed goals in the past, from the relationship between goals and emotions to the use of incremental goals (or personal bests). What I haven’t really discussed are the nut and bolts of goals, such as how we choose them and go about tackling them. Hopefully, I’ll be able to clarify some of these pointsContinue reading Why Goals Matter
Positive Psychology essentially deals with human happiness. It’s a movement that grew out of Martin Seligman’s 1998 presidential address to the American Psychological Association. Seligman, a world-renowned psychologist who was instrumental in the discovery of learned helplessness, suggested that psychology needed to shift its emphasis from the negative aspects of the human condition to areasContinue reading Positive Psychology: Past, Present and Future
Let’s be honest, sometimes there is nothing worse than feeling down and having to be around happy people, especially if those people insist on telling us to ‘cheer up’ or (god forbid) to ‘turn that frown upside-down’ (and please don’t tell me how many muscles it takes to frown). But is there any benefit toContinue reading The Surprising Up Side of Feeling Down
(But Not To Form New Memories). There remains clear evidence from multiple studies that high levels of anxiety can impair memory function. However, this impairment appears to only impact recall and has either neutral or beneficial impact on memory encoding (the process by which new information is stored). One reason why anxiety impairs the abilityContinue reading Why Anxiety Makes It Difficult to Recall Information
(a work in progress) Why do some students seem to suffer more with anxiety than others? Limited amounts of stress are good for us (especially if we need to escape from a dangerous situation). This acute stress is often fleeting, involving a complex biological and behavioural mechanism that can increase motivation and cognitive function. ButContinue reading A Model of Student Anxiety
I’ve been thinking about anxiety lately. At a time when many students in England will be sitting or about to sit their mock exams (my own son included), it seemed like a good time to raise the issue again. None of us are strangers to anxiety and, indeed, some anxiety is actually beneficial to us.Continue reading Some Anxious Thoughts
The Emotional Learner 