Affective states, expressive behavior, and learning in children.

Abstract

Two experiments with children are presented that illustrate the effects of emotional states on learning and validate experimental affect-induction procedures in which individuals dwell upon thoughts of affect-provoking experiences. Positive affective states enhanced learning, and negative states retarded it dramatically. Ratings of children's facial expressions confirmed that positive affectinduction procedures elicited happy expressions, and negative inductions elicited sad ones. Additionally, positive affect inductions enhanced children's apparent interest, involvement, and arousal, and negative inductions decreased them. These measures were related to learning but proved not to be the sole mediators of the impact of affective states on learning. The thoughts children generated for affect induction illustrated their recognition of naturalistic experiences that induce affective states. These results indicate that young children possess the potential for the cognitive self-control of their own affective states, and the effects on learning indicate that even transient mood states may produce lasting changes in behavior.Preliminary versions of this experiment constituted an undergraduate summa cum laude honors thesis by the second-named author. The able assistance of Craig Binger is gratefully acknowledged.

Marital conflict and children's adjustment: A cognitive-contextual framework.

“…It is likely that children's mood also may affect their processing of marital conflict (Forgas, Burnham, & Trimboli, 1988;Masters, Barden, & Ford, 1979;Masters, Felleman, & Barden, 1981). For example, a girl having difficulty with homework may feel sad or frustrated, which may lead her to react more intensely to conflict than if she had been enjoying a television show.…”

Researching Entrepreneurial Failures

“…While being committed to an action can improve performance, this commitment needs to be balanced with learning from failure because learning from failure can also improve performance (McGrath, 1999). Finally, research has found that negative emotions "narrow people's attention, making them miss the forest for the trees" (Fredrickson, 2001, p. 222); disrupt creative and integrative thinking (Estrada, Isen, & Young, 1997;Fredrickson & Branigan, 2005;Isen, Daubman, & Nowicki, 1987); and, ultimately, inhibit learning (Fredrickson & Branigan, 2005;Masters, Barden, & Ford, 1979). As time passes (i.e., after the failure), these negative emotions tend to dissipate , thereby eliminating barriers to learning from failure.…”

Affect and memory in young children

“…The affect induction procedure for the present experiment was based upon a standard cognitive induction procedure that has been used successfully in a number of studies (e.g., Barden et al, 1981;Barden, Garber, Leiman, Ford, & Masters, 1985;Moore et al, 1973;Rosenhan et al, 1974;Underwood et al, 1973) and has been validated using independent measures of affect (Masters et al, 1979). In this procedure, children generate a thought of a particular affective valence and then dwell upon it for a brief period of time (typically, 30 seconds).…”

“…The facial features used to judge the presence or absence of the affects were taken from the work of Ekman, Friesen, and Ellsworth (1971), and the coding scheme was consistent with that used by Masters et al (1979) and Barden et al (1981). All ratings were made using 9-point scales, where 1 indicated the absence of a particular affect but did not imply the presence of another affect (e.g., "l-sadness" did not imply any degree of happiness).…”

“…Experimental procedures to induce affective states have been shown to be valid, and children's moods have been demonstrated to influence their social behavior with other children (Barden, Garber, Duncan, & Masters, 1981;Harris & Siebel, 1975;Rosenhan, Underwood, & Moore, 1974;. The publication of both convergent and discriminant validity data on the induction procedure (Masters, Barden, & Ford, 1979;Teasdale & Taylor, 1981) has encouraged the utilization of experimentally induced affective states to explore the influence of emotion on learning (Masters et al, 1979) and other cognitive processes under carefully controlled experimental conditions.…”