Reciprocity of Cognitive and Emotional Antecedents to Bullying: Bidirectional Relations Between Cognitive Impulsivity and Anger

The purpose of this study was to investigate the possibility that cognitive and affective variables form a reciprocal relationship when it comes to predicting future bullying perpetration. To this end, the bidirectional relationship between cognitive impulsivity and anger was evaluated in an effort to determine whether both cross-lagged pathways contributed to a rise in bullying behavior. The reciprocal hypothesis was tested in a sample of 1,160 early adolescents (567 boys, 593 girls) from the Illinois Study of Bullying and Sexual Violence (ISBSV). Cognitive impulsivity and anger were cross-lagged at Waves 1 and 2 of the ISBSV, after which they were correlated with bullying perpetration at Wave 3 in a three-wave longitudinal path analysis. Results from the path analysis identified the presence of a significant bidirectional association between Cognitive Impulsivity-1 and Anger-2 and between Anger-1 and Cognitive Impulsivity-2, with both cross-lags effectively predicting future bullying behavior.

Are teachers’ subjective feelings linked with need-supportive and need-thwarting motivating styles? A cross-lagged pilot study in physical education

This article examines the relations between the teachers’ subjective feeling and their motivating teaching style during physical education lessons. Doing so, it aimed at better understanding the emotional antecedents of the teaching behaviors. Twelve volunteer physical education teachers were filmed with their respective classes to assess the motivating style they used during their intervention. Immediately after, the subjective feelings they felt during the lesson were assessed using the affective slider in a video-based session. Cross-lagged multilevel modeling was then performed, controlling for emotional exhaustion level and demographic factors. Results showed that, at the within level, subjective pleasant feelings predicted positively the relatedness-supportive dimension of the motivating style, and negatively the controlling dimension. At the between level, the controlling dimension of the motivating style was positively related to the pleasant subjective feelings while the relatedness-thwarting dimension was negatively related to them. While literature has mainly examined the cognitive antecedents of teachers’ motivating styles, this study emphasizes the emotional processes occurring during the lesson. Based on the conceptual framework of teachers’ emotions model proposed by Frenzel (2014), results indicate that teachers react to their subjective feelings, modifying the way they interact with students accordingly. In parallel with cognitive determinants of teaching, the emotional dimension thus deserves to be more deeply considered in future teaching training programs.

Depression, Anxiety, and Social Rejection Decisions: General Distress Symptoms are Associated with Rejection Feeling More Difficult

Although the emotional consequences of social rejection are well-documented, less is known about the emotional antecedents of making the decision to reject. The present studies examine the association of anxiety and depressive symptoms, general distress, self-esteem, and rejection sensitivity with intentions to reject. In a set of two preregistered studies (N-1 = 214, N-2 = 264), participants completed symptom, self-esteem, and rejection sensitivity questionnaires and read friendship and romantic relationship vignettes. Participants indicated their likelihood of engaging in rejection, perceived difficulty of rejecting, and how they would feel about rejecting. Across both studies, participants experiencing higher levels of general distress and lower levels of self-esteem indicated that engaging in rejection would be more difficult and would lead to higher levels of negative emotion. In addition, participants with higher levels of rejection sensitivity felt that engaging in rejection would be more difficult. However, participants did not differ in their reported willingness to reject based on symptoms, self-esteem, or rejection sensitivity, nor did these markers relate to the number of romantic relationships they had ended. Taken together, the two studies suggest that psychological distress may not result in decreased willingness to reject, but may make the decision-making process feel more difficult.

The emotional antecedents of solidarity in social media crowds

This study examines the organizational dynamics of social media crowds, in particular, the influence of a crowd’s emotional expression on its solidarity. To identify the relationship between emotions expressed and solidarity, marked by sustained participation in the crowd, the study uses tweets from a unique population of crowds—those tweeting about ongoing National Football League games. Observing this population permits the use of game results as quasi-random treatments on crowds, helping to reduce confounding factors. Results indicate that participation in these crowds is self-sustaining in the medium term (1 week) and can be stimulated or suppressed by emotional expression in a short term (1 hour), depending on the discrete emotion expressed. In particular, anger encourages participation while sadness discourages it. Positive emotions and anxiety have a more nuanced relationship with participation.

Science Is Awe-Some: The Emotional Antecedents of Science Learning

Scientists from Einstein to Sagan have linked emotions like awe with the motivation for scientific inquiry, but no research has tested this possibility. Theoretical and empirical work from affective science, however, suggests that awe might be unique in motivating explanation and exploration of the physical world. We synthesize theories of awe with theories of the cognitive mechanisms related to learning, and offer a generative theoretical framework that can be used to test the effect of this emotion on early science learning.