The Influence of English as a Foreign Language Teachers’ Positive Mood and Hope on Their Academic Buoyancy: A Theoretical Review

Emotions are now considered critical elements of a successful education. In English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context, there are many challenges for teachers to deal with. Hence, it is necessary to take their emotions into consideration. Despite many studies in this area, researching teachers’ positive mood, hope, and academic buoyancy has been left less attended. Trying to introduce this line, the present study reviewed the definitions, related concepts, theories, and previous studies done on these three variables in detail. It also touched upon the origins of researching emotion in educational contexts describing different schools of psychology. Additionally, the study offered some practical implications for EFL teachers, students, policy-makers, teacher trainers, and researchers. Finally, it enumerated the existing gaps in this area and made a number of research suggestions for future research.

The impact of regular dance classes on self-image and emotional state of demoralized female adolescents

Article present the possibilities of use dance classes and psychosocial factors in a specific environmental associated with among demoralized adolescents. In this paper presents research conducted on a group of adolescents whose behaviour is characterized by demoralization and whose commitment of criminal offences resulted in them becoming the subject of an confinement corrective measure, i.e. being placed in a youth educational centre. The Adjective Check List ACL created by H.G. Gough and A. Helibrun, as well as the Profile of Mood States (POMS) developed by McNair, Lorr and Droppleman were used in the research. After twelve weeks of systematic dance classes, the test was repeated and noticeable changes in self-perception of the surveyed girls were observed. The average values of 14 out of 37 scales of the ACL questionnaire after the end of the project differed significantly (p <0.05) compared to the results before the start of the project. Moreover, after each week of the project, a comparison of the survey results with the POMS questionnaire was carried out in terms of the severity of individual moods. The analysis shows that the subjects successively had a significant decrease in the level of all five negative states and an increase in positive mood

Social Encounters and Mood: The Moderating Role of Narcissism

Social contacts may lead to more positive and less negative emotions in late life, yet we know little about how narcissism influences such associations, and whether contacts with close and not-close social partners impact mood differently. This study examined associations between social contacts, narcissism, and mood on the within- and between- person level. Older adults aged 65 + (N = 303) completed ecological momentary assessments in which they reported social contacts and mood every 3 hours for 5 to 6 days. Older adults had higher positive mood after contacting either close or not-close social partners, but only not-close social partners reduced negative mood. Multilevel models found positive associations between average social contacts number and positive mood among people scored lower on narcissism, and positive associations between social contacts and negative mood for those who scored higher on narcissism. Findings suggest the necessity of considering interpersonal differences in interventions targeting well-being.

Daily Social Media Use, Social Ties, and Emotional Well-Being in Later Life

Research has seldom explored older adults’ daily social media use and its interface with ‘offline’ social ties. Using data from the Daily Experiences and Well-being Study (N = 310; Mage = 73.96), we investigated whether more daily social media use was associated with the same-day negative or positive mood in later life, and how these associations varied with older adults’ daily social encounters and social network structure. More daily social media use was associated with less same-day negative mood. Additionally, more daily social media use was associated with less negative mood on days with more in-person encounters, compared to the days with fewer in-person encounters. More daily social media use was also associated with more positive mood for individuals with a relatively small social network, but not for their counterparts. Post-hoc analyses supported a compensatory function of social media for those older adults lacking social connections in their daily lives.

Physical Activity, Social Support, and Mood in Older Adults during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Research shows that increased physical activity is associated with improved mood and reduced symptoms of depression in older adults. Prior research has also found that loneliness and social isolation have a significant impact on the mental and physical well-being of older adults, with higher amounts of social connectedness and social activity associated with more frequent positive mood states. Overall social isolation is increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic and this could have a large impact on the physical and mental health of older adults. A group of 36 community dwelling older adults (Mean age = 70.5) completed questionnaires measuring physical activity, social activity, and social support, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Analyses found that perceived social support and average social network size significantly predicted positive mood states (F(2,33)=3.32, p&lt;0.05) accounting for 16.7% of the variance, with a large effect. After adding average number of hours of sedentary activity the model was not significant. Perceived social support was more predictive of positive mood (β=0.32) compared to network size (β=0.17). There was a trend for the same three variables to predict negative mood (F(3,32)=2.76, p=0.06) accounting for 22% of the variance. Sedentary behaviour was the most predictive (t=2.68, p&lt;0.05, β= 0.49). This suggests that perceived social support is most predictive of positive mood, and sedentary behaviour is predictive of negative mood during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Benefits of Intergenerational Contact: Ageism, Subjective Well-Being, and Psychosocial Developmental Strengths of Wisdom and Identity

The present study examines the benefits of an in-person intergenerational contact program called SAGE (Successful Aging and Inter-Generational Experiences). The SAGE Program pairs older adults (M age 85 years) and younger adults (M age 23 years) for 2 to 3-hour weekly meetings over a 7-week period, where participants can share memories, skills, and values, and foster new perspectives and friendships. We expected the SAGE Program to benefit both older and younger participants with respect to identity processes, subjective well-being, positive mood, and wisdom while reducing ageist beliefs compared to old and young participants serving as their matched controls. Overall, participants in the SAGE Program reported greater identity synthesis,subjective well-being, and positive mood. Exploratory analyses suggested that identity synthesis is a likely mediator of that effect. The SAGE Program did not reduce ageist beliefs, but age differences in ageism were found. We address additional results,limitations, and future research directions.

Smiling By Way of Zygomatic Electrical Stimulation: Investigating the Facial Feedback Hypothesis

While it is widely accepted that affective states precede facial expressions, the facial feedback hypothesis (FFH) proposes the inverse. The FFH postulates that facial muscle region activity (e.g., smiling or frowning) directly influences the experience of emotion. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the validity of the FFH - specifically whether smiling independently enhances positive mood.

COVID-19 Lockdown and Creativity: Exploring the Role of Emotions and Motivation on Creative Activities From the Chinese and German Perspectives

For much of 2020, countries around the world fought against the COVID-19 pandemic. Many countries went into lockdown to control the fast spread of the virus. The unusual restrictions and confinement of the lockdown brought about new challenges for people’s everyday lives. With flexibility, adaptability, and problem-solving at the core of its nature, creativity has the potential to help people cope with harsh and uncertain circumstances. Were people more, the same, or less creative in their everyday life during the period of lockdown, and in which ways? What are the emotions and motivations underlying their creative or non-creative behaviors? The current study aims to explore these questions from a cross-cultural perspective. A total of 754 comparable employee samples from three Chinese and three German cities were asked about their moods during the lockdown period, their self-rated level of creativity in daily lives before and during the lockdown, and their motivations behind their creative activities. Significant increases in creativity were observed in all everyday activities in both countries with only two exceptions in the German sample. Despite minor differences, a common pattern was found across cultures: whereas the activating positive mood could directly lead to the increase in creativity in some everyday activities, such a direct Mood-Creativity link was limited in the activating negative mood circumstances. In such circumstances, motivation intervened to enable the link to creativity. It was also found that this indirect effect of motivation between mood and creativity was more pronounced with the German participants.

Positive moods are all alike? Differential affect amplification effects of ‘elated’ versus ‘calm’ mental im-agery in young adults reporting hypomanic-like experiences

Positive mood amplification is a hallmark of the bipolar disorder spectrum (BPDS). We need bet-ter understanding of cognitive mechanisms leading to such elevated mood. Generation of vivid, emo-tionally compelling mental imagery is proposed to act as an ‘emotional amplifier’ in BPDS.We used a positive mental imagery generation paradigm to manipulate affect in a subclinical BPDS-relevant sample reporting high (n=31) vs. low (n=30) hypomanic-like experiences on the Mood Dis-order Questionnaire (MDQ). Participants were randomized to an ‘elated’ or ‘calm’ mental imagery condi-tion, rating their momentary affect four times across the experimental session. We hypothesized greater affect increase in the high (vs. low) MDQ group assigned to the elated (vs. calm) imagery generation condition. We further hypothesized that this change would be driven by increases in the types of affect typically associated with (hypo)mania, i.e., suggestive of high activity lev-els.Mixed model and time-series analysis showed that for the high MDQ group, affect increased steeply and in a sustained manner over time in the ‘elated’ imagery condition, and more shallowly in ‘calm’. The low-MDQ group did not show this amplification effect. Analysis of affect clusters showed high-MDQ mood amplification in the ‘elated’ imagery condition was most pronounced for active affective states. This experimental model of BPDS-relevant mood amplification shows evidence that positive men-tal imagery drives changes in affect in the high MDQ group in a targeted manner. Findings inform cogni-tive mechanisms of mood amplification, and spotlight prevention strategies targeting elated imagery, while potentially retaining calm imagery to preserve adaptive positive emotionality.