An official website of the United States government
Children experience a variety of emotions in achievement settings. Yet, mathematics-related emotions other than anxiety are understudied, especially for young children entering primary school. The current study reports the prevalence and intensity of six basic, discrete achievement emotions (joy/happiness, sadness, surprise, anger, fear, and disgust) expressed on the faces of 15 kindergarten-aged children as they solved increasingly complex arithmetic story problems in a 3-month teaching experiment. We also examine how the extent to which the expressed emotions influenced arithmetic accuracy at the end of an instructional session at the beginning, middle, and end of the teaching experiment. Through the application ofFaceReader9, the three most intensely expressed emotions at the launch of the instructional sessions were happiness/joy, sadness, and surprise. Using functional regressions, these expressed achievement emotions predicted arithmetic accuracy at the end of the instructional session. However, when the effect of session over time was added to the model, the relationship between happiness/joy and accuracy, as well as sadness and accuracy, became non-significant. In contrast, the relationship between surprise and accuracy remained significant. We discuss potential explanations for these patterns of significance and non-significance. This study serves as a critical first step in clarifying how emotions contribute to problem-solving behavior as we grapple with how to respond to the sometimes intense, but always present emotions of young learners in ways that are affirming, as well as mathematically productive and generative.
more »
« less
Comparing disgust and sadness: examining the interaction of emotion and information in charity appeals
Purpose – This study aims to compare the use of disgust and sadness – two negative emotions associated with different appraisals and information processing styles – in charity social marketing appeals. Design/methodology/approach – An experiment (n= 247) examined effects when disgust or sad imagery was used alone versus when images were accompanied by information about the cause. OLS regression results show including information reduced empathy when participants were exposed to sad images, replicating prior research on sadness in charity marketing. No similar effect was observed for disgust-evoking images. Although disgust images alone reduced empathy compared to sad images alone, disgust images paired with information were just as effective as sad images alone and sad images accompanied by information. Empathy mediated the relationship between exposure to each type of appeal and donations – this relationship was negative for sad images but not for disgust images accompanied by information. Research limitations/implications – These findings suggest the use of disgust may help to mitigate the loss of empathy that occurs when individuals engage in deliberative tasks, such as reading information about a cause. They also illustrate how the distinct properties of discrete emotions can be used strategically to influence social marketing outcomes. Originality/value – Existing research has compared disgust-evoking images to appeals using neutral, mildly disgusting or positive emotional imagery. This study compares disgust to sadness, a negative emotion commonly used in charity marketing, and considers interaction effects with informational elements of the appeal.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 1757097
- PAR ID:
- 10567298
- Publisher / Repository:
- Emerald Publishing Limited
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Social Marketing
- ISSN:
- 2042-6763
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Do negative feelings in general trigger addictive behavior, or do specific emotions play a stronger role? Testing these alternative accounts of emotion and decision making, we drew on the Appraisal Tendency Framework to predict that sadness, specifically, rather than negative mood, generally, would 1) increase craving, impatience, and actual addictive substance use and 2) do so through mechanisms selectively heightened by sadness. Using a nationally representative, longitudinal survey, study 1 (n= 10,685) revealed that sadness, but not other negative emotions (i.e., fear, anger, shame), reliably predicted current smoking as well as relapsing 20 years later. Study 2 (n= 425) used an experimental design, and found further support for emotion specificity: Sadness, but not disgust, increased self-reported craving relative to a neutral state. Studies 3 and 4 (n= 918) introduced choice behavior as outcome variables, revealing that sadness causally increased impatience for cigarette puffs. Moreover, study 4 revealed that the effect of sadness on impatience was more fully explained by concomitant appraisals of self-focus, which are specific to sadness, than by concomitant appraisals of negative valence, which are general to all negative emotions. Importantly, study 4 also examined the topography of actual smoking behavior, finding that experimentally induced sadness (as compared to neutral emotion) causally increased the volume and duration of cigarette puffs inhaled. Together, the present studies provide support for a more nuanced model regarding the effects of emotion on tobacco use, in particular, as well as on addictive behavior, in general.more » « less
-
Facial expressions of emotions by people with visual impairment and blindness via video conferencingMany people including those with visual impairment and blindness take advantage of video conferencing tools to meet people. Video conferencing tools enable them to share facial expressions that are considered as one of the most important aspects of human communication. This study aims to advance knowledge of how those with visual impairment and blindness share their facial expressions of emotions virtually. This study invited a convenience sample of 28 adults with visual impairment and blindness to Zoom video conferencing. The participants were instructed to pose facial expressions of basic human emotions (anger, fear, disgust, happiness, surprise, neutrality, calmness, and sadness), which were video recorded. The facial expressions were analyzed using the Facial Action Coding System (FACS) that encodes the movement of specific facial muscles called Action Units (AUs). This study found that there was a particular set of AUs significantly engaged in expressing each emotion, except for sadness. Individual differences were also found in AUs influenced by the participants’ visual acuity levels and emotional characteristics such as valence and arousal levels. The research findings are anticipated to serve as the foundation of knowledge, contributing to developing emotion-sensing technologies for those with visual impairment and blindness.more » « less
-
Meta-analyses have not shown emotions to be significant predictors of deception. Criticisms of this conclusion argued that individuals must be engaged with each other in higher stake situations for such emotions to manifest, and that these emotions must be evaluated in their verbal context (Frank and Svetieva in J Appl Res Memory Cognit 1:131–133, 10.1016/j.jarmac.2012.04.006, 2012). This study examined behavioral synchrony as a marker of engagement in higher stakes truthful and deceptive interactions, and then compared the differences in facial expressions of fear, contempt, disgust, anger, and sadness not consistent with the verbal content. Forty-eight pairs of participants were randomly assigned to interviewer and interviewee, and the interviewee was assigned to steal either a watch or a ring and to lie about the item they stole, and tell the truth about the other, under conditions of higher stakes of up to $30 rewards for successful deception, and $0 plus having to write a 15-min essay for unsuccessful deception. The interviews were coded for expression of emotions using EMFACS (Friesen and Ekman in EMFACS-7; emotional facial action coding system, 1984). Synchrony was demonstrated by the pairs of participants expressing overlapping instances of happiness (AU6 + 12). A 3 (low, moderate, high synchrony) × 2 (truth, lie) mixed-design ANOVA found that negative facial expressions of emotion were a significant predictor of deception, but only when they were not consistent with the verbal content, in the moderate and high synchrony conditions. This finding is consistent with data and theorizing that shows that with higher stakes, or with higher engagement, emotions can be a predictor of deception.more » « less
-
null (Ed.)Reframing engineering activities to emphasize the needs of others has the potential to strengthen engineering practices like problem scoping, while also providing more inclusive and socially relevant entry points into engineering problems. In this design-based research project, we developed novel strategies for adding narratives to engineering activities to deepen girls’ engagement in engineering practices by evoking empathy for the users of their designs. We describe a set of hands-on engineering activities developed through iterative development and testing with 190 girls (ages 7-14) at the New York Hall of Science. Findings show how elements of narrative (like characters and settings) evoked learners’ empathy, and how learners’ expressions of empathy related to practices like problem scoping and iteration. A set of design principles summarizes critical features of the narrative activities for evoking empathy and supporting the engineering design process. Finally, we offer recommendations for practitioners who would like to use narratives to engage learners in approaching engineering problems from a user-centered perspective. This work has implications for the development of inclusive and engaging engineering activities that appeal to elementary and middle school learners in a wide range of settings.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1108/JSOCM-11-2023-0265
