{"id":8157,"date":"2025-04-20T08:00:44","date_gmt":"2025-04-20T13:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/?p=8157"},"modified":"2025-04-20T08:00:44","modified_gmt":"2025-04-20T13:00:44","slug":"how-do-emotions-affect-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/how-do-emotions-affect-learning\/","title":{"rendered":"(How) Do Emotions Affect Learning?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When a conference speaker announces that “a student’s emotions<\/strong> matter for their learning,” few teachers rock back in surprise. OF COURSE emotions matter for learning. Who would have thought otherwise?<\/p>\n

At the same time, we’re probably curious to know how<\/em>\u00a0emotions influence learning.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

In fact, once we ask that question, some sense of surprise might start to creep in. After all,\u00a0the word “learning” falls squarely in the realm of\u00a0cognition<\/em>. And the word “emotion” sounds much more like …\u00a0well …\u00a0emotion<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Aren’t cognition<\/em> and emotion<\/em> two different sets<\/strong> of mental processes? If they are, how does one affect the other?<\/p>\n

Here’s where research can be really helpful, if we read it carefully.<\/p>\n

One of the best known (and most misunderstood) insights in this field comes from LatB regular Mary Helen Immordino-Yang:<\/p>\n

“It is literally neurobiologically impossible to think deeply about things that you don’t care about.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Why? Because — in the words of a recent study<\/a> led by Benjamin Hawthorne — “the brain mechanisms that give rise to conscious emotions are not fundamentally different from those that give rise to cognition.”<\/p>\n

In other word: the parts of your brain that do the emotional<\/em> work also do the thinking<\/em> work. Yes, LOTS of the same neural networks operate in both processes. These two seemingly “different sets of mental processes” share very substantial plots of neural real estate. (I will, by the way, come back to the misunderstanding of Dr. Immordino-Yang’s quotation at the end of this post.)<\/p>\n

So, STEP ONE in this multi-step argument: “students’ emotions influence their learning because — at the neurobiological level\u00a0 — ’emotion’ and ‘cognition’ overlap.<\/p>\n

Step Two<\/h2>\n

With this\u00a0neuroscience<\/em> understanding of the cognition\/emotion relationship established,\u00a0let’s turn to\u00a0psychology<\/em>. What mental processes<\/strong> might explain this relationship?<\/p>\n

One potential answer: WORKING MEMORY (often abbreviated as WM).\u00a0<\/em>If emotions — positive or negative — have an effect on WM, then we can easily understand how those emotions affect learning.<\/p>\n

This hypothesis is at the heart of that recent study<\/a>, led by Dr. Hawthorne, that I quoted a few paragraphs ago.<\/p>\n

Hawthorne’s team explored this question through the concept of “cognitive load theory.”\u00a0The full theory is too complicated\u00a0to review here, but the headlines are straightforward:<\/p>\n