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Psychology and ELT: The Long Reach of Emotions
Nick Michelioudakis, Greece
Nick Michelioudakis (B. Econ., Dip. RSA, MSc [TEFL]) has worked as a teacher, examiner
and trainer for both teachers and Oral Examiners. He is interested in one-to-one teaching and
student motivation as well as Social and Evolutionary Psychology. You can access his blog at
www.michelioudakis.org.
‘No, they did nothing wrong; I dislike them because I was mean to them!’
Menu
Introdcution
Dostoyevsky’s insight
Does our emotional state affect the way we behave?
The self-justification mechanism
Implications for the field of ELT
The power of negative emotions
Conclusion
Useful terms explained
References
Introduction
This article explores the counter-intuitive idea that seemingly insignificant actions prompted
by fleeting emotions can nevertheless have a very serious effect on what we do in the future.
Our actions help shape our perceptions of who we are and this in turn influences our
subsequent behaviour.
Dostoyevsky’s insight
As is the case with many great writers, Dostoyevsky had a profound intuitive understanding
of human psychology. In a passage from ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ (in Tavris & Aronson,
2007, p. 28), Fyodor Pavlovitch recalls how he had been asked at some point why he hated
someone. ‘I’ll tell you’ he replied ‘He has done me no harm. But I have played him a dirty
trick and ever since I have hated him!’ I remember going over this passage again and again
when I first came across it – ‘I wronged him, ergo I hate him?!?’ But then it started making
sense. You hurt someone (for whatever reason) and then you reason to yourself ‘I am a nice
person and yet I have hurt this other guy; either I am not such a nice person, OR s/he deserved
it!’ So you come to hate them. This is classic ‘Cognitive Dissonance reduction’ * (Festinger,
in Abelson, Frey, & Gregg, p 66). What is amazing is what long-term consequences a shortlived emotion can have. Professor Ariely has studied this phenomenon and here he is
explaining the main idea:
Does our emotional state affect the way we behave?
In this experiment (Andrade & Ariely, 2009), some people (Group A) were shown a scene
from a film where a man was treated with gross unfairness by his boss. They were naturally
outraged. Some other people (Group B) spent a few minutes watching ‘Friends’ instead.
They left with a smile on their faces. All these individuals were then asked to take part in a
round of ‘The Ultimatum Game’. ** They were paired with an unseen partner (in fact, the
researcher) who made them an unfair offer: They were to get € 5, while their partner had
apparently kept € 15 for themselves. Would they accept it? Would their emotional state
make a difference?
It did. People in Group A were much more likely to reject the offer. Unsurprisingly, perhaps,
their anger (at the man’s boss) had ‘spilled over’ into the Ultimatum Game, which had
nothing to do with what they had watched! But now came the amazing part of the study: the
researchers waited until the initial feelings had dissipated (they actually checked to make sure
of that) and then they had the two groups participate in yet another round of the Ultimatum
Game. Once again, all participants were confronted with a similar unfair division. Surely, the
results should be about the same between the two groups this second time?! Well, amazingly
they were not! Once again, group A were far more dismissive of the unfair offer (ibid). Why?
The self-justification mechanism
According to Cognitive Dissonance theory, our mind works ceaselessly trying to justify our
actions to ourselves. Here, individuals in group A might have reasoned along these lines: ‘I
have just rejected an offer for € 5. Why? Either I am stupid, or I have a strong sense of
justice. Of course it’s the latter – it’s the principle of the thing!’ (Notice how (a) the cause of
the rejection – the ‘spill-over effect’ – is usually lost on people. We very often misattribute
the reasons for our actions (Wiseman 2012, p. 70). (b) Naturally, our mind dismisses the idea
that we might have made a mistake in the first place!) Having come to this conclusion, these
people had self-righteously cast themselves as ‘just’; this being so, they could not possibly
accept the similarly unfair offer the second time round! This may well lead to a selfperpetuating cycle; the next time such a situation arose, these people would perhaps not think
at all. We do not want to tax our brain too much; often, when we have a decision to make we
simply ask ourselves ‘What did I do last time?’ Rather than consider the situation afresh, we
line up behind ourselves (Ariely, 2010, p. 262).
Implications for the field of ELT
We have seen then that there are a number of key ideas at work here:
 Very often we are aware of our emotions but not where they come from.
 Once we have acted in a certain way, we tend to act consistently in the future.
 We use our actions as an indicator of who we are; in a sense, we attach a label to
ourselves!
What does all this mean for teaching?
Beware of importing negativity
Unfortunately, we cannot disengage our minds upon entering the classroom from all the
problems we face in our lives. It may be that we have quarreled with our spouse and we are
feeling tense and then something happens in class and we just take it out on our students. At
times this may be understandable, but as we have seen it can have far-reaching effects; if we
yell at our students we may come to see them as spoilt (in order to justify our actions!) and
worse still perhaps, we may have taken the first step towards seeing ourselves as ‘people who
do not take any nonsense’ which may colour our subsequent behaviour. Unless we notice this
and take remedial action, this may well lead to a vicious circle of unreasonably strict
behaviour and self-justification.
Take quick remedial action
Knowing all this, we can sometimes detect such things when they happen (‘I shouldn’t have
yelled at them; I was angry with the Director of Studies and I took it out on my students…’).
Yet, simple recognition is not enough; we need to do something about it. First of all, we could
acknowledge the mistake and apologise to the class – in this way we cast ourselves in the role
of the ‘mature teacher who is above all this’. Something else we can do is focus on the ‘silver
lining’ – the positive aspects of the experience (e.g., ‘it gave me an insight into how I react
sometimes’). Research shows that people who do this tend to be much more forgiving
afterwards towards the people they had quarreled with – the students in this case (Wiseman,
2010, p. 185).
Label yourself positively
We have seen how accidental actions can shape our subsequent behaviour – but so can
conscious ones! If you label yourself as the kind teacher, who loves his/her, students and cares
for them, you are likely to act in a more tolerant way towards them even if they play you up
and even if you are feeling on edge yourself. If you behave positively towards them, you
commit yourself to a certain pattern of behaviour which your mind will subsequently use as a
guide. Even simply attaching that label to yourself and thinking of yourself in this way can
influence your actions when you find yourself in a difficult situation (cf. Zimbardo’s views
about ‘heroic ideation’ – YouTube).
Get students to do things for you
What has been said for the teacher also applies to other people of course. In a fascinating
study (Jecker & Landy, 1969), students were promised some payment in order to take part in
an experiment. Once it was over, they received the money, but later the researcher assistant
asked them if they would mind returning it. Half the students were told that the department
lacked adequate funds while the rest were told that the researcher was funding the study out of
his own pocket and he was in the red. Everyone agreed to return the money. What was
interesting however was that when asked later it was the latter group who found the researcher
most likeable! (An explanation of this according to The Cognitive Dissonance Reduction
theory is that the subjects must have reasoned to themselves ‘Either he was a nice guy so I did
well, or I did a stupid thing returning the money!’) The moral here is that the more things you
get students to do for you, the more they will like you.
Exploit student exuberance
Very often you may find students in an exuberant mood (perhaps because the national team
has won an important match). This is an opportunity not to be missed! According to Aronson
(1999, p. 32) an emotion consists of two parts: a) psychological arousal and b) a ‘label’
(where the feeling comes from). However, as we have already seen, the label may be the
wrong one. This means that we can exploit the students’ state and do a number of
interesting/fun activities with them (e.g., games / songs / puzzles etc.). We could even get
them to give a talk about why the match was a great match or the chances of the national team
winning the World Cup (or whatever it is they are playing for!). The point is that there is a
good chance the students may misattribute their feelings of elation to your amazing teaching
and as a result be more motivated in subsequent lessons!
Better still – create it!
Of course there is no reason to wait for such opportunities to arise – you can create them
yourself. Starting your lesson with a joke or with a funny video (e.g., YouTube ‘Comedy for
ELT’) can put students in a good mood. This positive feeling may then ‘spill over’ to the
other activities you do which ss may be prepared to work harder at. Students may then use
their behaviour in this particular lesson as a guide for subsequent sessions and they may even
‘label’ themselves as being highly motivated. It is all a virtuous circle: the happier the
students are, the harder they are prepared to work, the more they think of themselves as
motivated learners. Labels tend to stick!
The power of negative emotions
There is one last thing to be said about negative emotions (fear, anger, etc.): for evolutionary
reasons, they are far more powerful than positive ones. Baumeister (quoted in Kashdan &
Bisaws-Diener 2015 – p. 54) has put it succinctly: ‘Bad is stronger than good’. Time and
again, research reveals this assymetry; for instance, studies of couples in therapy have shown
that for a marriage to stand any chance of surviving, positive comments between the partners
should outweigh negative ones at least 5 to 1 (Gottman, 1994). There is a moral here for
teachers which the pioneer of humanistic education, G. Moscowitz, has spelled out for us in
no uncertain terms ‘Avoid [a negative focus] like the plague!’ (Moscowitz, 1978, p 26). The
salience of negative comments tends to blot out almost anything positive in the context and it
can trigger all kinds of defensive responses.
Conclusion
The take away message here is that even isolated actions can help shape our view of who we
are and in this way indirectly influence how we conduct ourselves in similar future situations.
Depending on the nature of these feelings, this is something we might want to beware of or,
conversely, harness.
Useful terms explained
* Cognitive Dissonance: A state of discomfort people experience when they find they hold
two inconsistent views or that their beliefs clash with their actions. According to Festinger,
people are motivated to reduce this feeling, either by adjusting their beliefs or, quite
frequently, by re-interpreting reality.
** The Ultimatum Game: You are wondering around a university campus, when somebody
accosts you, tells you that he is a psychologist and asks you if you can spare 3 minutes. You
say ‘yes’ and the psychologist then finds another volunteer. His name is John and you have
never met him before. The psychologist then gives you 20 one-Euro coins. He then asks you
to divide them up between John and yourself – you can divide them up any way you want:
e.g., € 12 for John and € 8 for you, or € 10 each, or € 5 for John and € 15 for you etc. Then
John is given a choice – he can ‘take it or leave it’. If he ‘takes’ it, you both take your money
and leave. If he decides he does not like the deal, he says ‘no’, in which case you just return
the money to the psychologist and you both leave. No discussion or negotiation is involved –
hence the name of the game (Frank, 1988).
References
Abelson, R., Frey, K., & Gregg, A. (2004). Experiments With People. New Jersey: Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates.
Andrade, E., & Ariely, D. (2009). The Enduring Impact of Transient Emotions on Decision
Making. Organizational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes 109, no 1: 1-8.
Ariely, D. (2008). Predictably Irrational. London: HarperCollins.
Aronson, E. (1999). The Social Animal. New York: Worth – Freeman.
Frank, R. (1988). Passions Within Reason. New York: Norton.
Gottman, J. (1994). Why Marriages Succeed or Fail. New York, Simon & Shuster.
Kashdan, T., & Bisaws-Diener R. (2015). The Power of Negative Emotion. Oneworld.
Moscowitz, G. (1978). Caring and Sharing in the Foreign Language Class. Cambridge, MA:
Newbury House.
Nettle, D. (2005). Happiness. New York: Oxford University Press.
Tavris, C., & Aronson, E. (2008). Mistakes were Made (But not by Me). London: Pinter and
Martin.
Wiseman, R. (2010). 59 Seconds. London: Pan Books.
Wiseman, R. (2012). Rip it Up. London: Macmillan.
Zimbardo, P. The Psychology of Evil. TED Talks – YouTube.
YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c14sdXf8VzI&hd=1
Please check the NLP & Coaching Skills for Teachers course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the How the Motivate your Students course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Building Positive Group Dynamics course at Pilgrims website.