Chapter 5 - Examining Emotional Diversity in the Classroom: An Attribution Theorist Considers the Moral Emotions

Abstract

This chapter discusses emotions that are prevalent in a classroom. Many educational researchers have tended to discuss emotions as intrapsychic phenomena. They are defined as subjective or private experiences having a positive or negative quality. Attesting to the personal quality of emotions are their antecedents and methods for identification and measurement. Among the many antecedents of feeling states are particular thoughts and hormonal conditions, whereas among their numerous indicators are patterns of actual or reported physiological activity and facial characteristics. Emotions are thus studied at the level of the individual. Virtually all emotion theorists agree that emotions have two properties, activation, and valence (ranging from positive or pleasant emotions such as love to negative or unpleasant emotions including anxiety). There also are some grey areas when making these distinctions. However, the activation/valence distinctions typically are applicable to describe affects. Anxiety clearly is a negative emotion, with its level of arousal dependent on a variety of conditions.