No place to hide

Motivation and emotion

This chapter explores the derivatives, dynamics, and consequences of the often intangible experience prompted by emotion, which, at any given moment, may be a dominant and immutable force that radically alters behavioral readiness, determination, and effort intensity. Globally, emotional responses to external events may trigger conflict, risk lives, destroy cultures, or build dynasties. Individually, subjective reactions to encounters can radically alter moods and dispositions, limiting or enabling our capabilities and accomplishments. Invariably, emotional episodes are linked to key performance drivers including perceptions of stress, anxiety, boredom, and well-being. This chapter also explores how regulation of emotion ultimately may be the only difference between peak performance and uncontrolled calamity.

Keywords

emotion; boredom; anxiety; emotional regulation; emotional intelligence

Times are tough: Read the news and you will quickly conclude that global economic stability and financial security are, at best, cyclical. Prosperity is often challenging and elusive. If you are a college student, an aspiring entrepreneur, someone starting a career, or a worker on a fixed hourly or monthly income, you may need to conserve your resources as much as possible to survive. If you need to save money, I have some great advice for you. Actually, my tip is borrowed from author Abbie Hoffman (no relation), who outlined how to get things for free in his counter-culture manifesto Steal This Book. Along with listing hundreds of ways to exploit government, scam law enforcement, and be a highly qualified, subversive hippy, Hoffman, Haber, and Cohen (1971) recommended getting someone else to pay for your expenses. For example, try the Hoffman approach to clean clothes. Go to a laundromat, and find someone with a light load of wash, ask to share their washing machine to get your laundry done for free. After overcoming the odd looks you will likely receive from your audacious request, the person will probably tell you to “get lost” or attempt to convey the same idea to you using more descriptive and colorful terminology. If the light loader resists your requests, shame him through verbal assault, calling him “cheap,” “self-centered,” and a “capitalist pig.” Then, assess the person’s emotional reaction.

If no significant reaction is observed at the laundromat, or if public laundering is not your style, escalate your obnoxious emotion-inducing behavior. Find a pregnant woman, who, if you are strategic, may be found at the laundromat. Approach the woman and ask politely, “Instead of getting pregnant, why didn’t you adopt one of the thousands of orphaned children who desperately need a loving home?” Even if you avoid assault and are not arrested for vagrancy or loitering, your outrageous behavior will most likely be critically evaluated by the target of your intentions, eliciting a response ranging from uncontrollable anger to belligerent contempt. In all likelihood, you will have triggered a subjective emotional episode (Moors, 2010), typically defined as the motivational and emotional consequences generated when an individual interacts with his or her surrounding environment. Before you leave the laundromat, be sure to tell the unsuspecting victim that your questions were asked in the name of advancing motivational science!

Unlike clandestine motives, which underlie behaviors designed to protect self-worth and the public scrutiny of private behavior, these emotion-evoking examples are based upon a very clear objective: actively providing a context for others to express their feelings. Although the emotional triggers described were suggested in jest, the deliberate and intentional cultivation of emotions is a common manipulative strategy used by lawyers, politicians, salesmen, and advertisers. The goal of these cunning individuals is to trigger snap judgments or to prompt impulsive buying decisions; deliberate strategies designed to circumvent objective deliberation and reason (Petty, Fabrigar, & Wegener, 2003). Suppressing emotional reactions is tenuous at best and minimally unhealthy. Actually, forestalling an emotional response and disguising behaviors is extremely challenging for many individuals, while for others, hiding emotions is a product of a conditioned brain and some crafty experience. Regardless, the deliberate repression of raging emotions is linked to detrimental psychological consequences, including depression. Further, the intentional repression of emotion inhibits both accurate sensory perception and efficient cognitive processing (Gross & Levenson, 1997).

The overt nature of emotional episodes is both helpful and agnostic in fostering understanding of emotion and reactive behavior. The unique and obvious symptoms that accompany some emotions are readily observed and easily identified (Russell, 1994). Universally, the expressive symptoms of anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise are consistently portrayed and accurately interpreted across cultures (Ekman, 1993), with evidence suggesting that many basic emotions are innate and evolutionary (Izard, 1994). People cry when they are sad, tremble in fear, laugh and smile when happy, and frown when angry. Each major emotion aligns with relatively stable and predictive behavioral patterns, such as the unmistakable resistive passion, raised voice, and flushed face of an individual when expressing the most common emotion: anger.

One reason individuals are unsuccessful at hiding visible, auditory, and affective symptoms are the inevitable somatic (bodily) and physiological responses associated with many emotions. Early theories of emotion, such as that of James-Lange (Lang, 1994) and the facial-feedback hypothesis (Buck, 1980; Izard, 1994), contended that emotions and biology share an intricately entwined, symbiotic relationship: One cannot exist without the other. These unitary historical views of emotion implied that nonverbal antecedents activated or accompanied the expression of emotions and were prompted by bodily changes in the individual. The temporality of emotional reactions was and still is debated, with various perspectives asserting that individuals first evaluate a situation and ascribe contingencies to what they experience, or conversely, bodily change precedes behavior and predicts your emotional expression. Pragmatically, temporality does not matter. It makes little practical difference if you shudder at the sight of hungry, saw-toothed, drooling grizzly bear because you are afraid or if the fear is instigated by bodily changes, such as adrenal secretion or wet pants. As the aspiring and practical MD knows by reading the previous eight chapters, when confronting a bear, it only matters whether or not you can outrun the bear.

Some emotions are not easily identified or well defined (Parkinson, 1995), and like many other motivational constructs, operational consensus of what constitutes an emotion is contentious. For instance, are you able to readily distinguish or articulate qualitative differences in feelings when embarrassed, humiliated, or mortified? Probably not. In aggregate, most scholars define emotions as event-driven episodes accompanied by biological changes that lead to culturally contingent “expressive behavior” (Moors, 2010, p. 1), also referred to as intentional action or “motivated action” (Parkinson, 1995, p. 8). These definitions imply that emotional action is goal directed with a measurable starting and end point. Once you kill the annoying fly buzzing around your head, your fly-induced anger will subside. Emotions differ from moods, dispositions, and attitudes, which are transient, involve multiple, deliberate cogitations and are usually associated with series of events. Unlike an emotion, moods may not have a singular identifiable target of origination or an easily identified cause. Affect is also frequently used as a term to describe emotions and is sometimes used interchangeably. Affect is distinguished as the neurophysical state associated with particular subjective feelings during an emotional event (Russell, 2003). In practical terms, affect is typically an evaluative function indicating how we feel, while emotion is the expression and result of the subjective evaluation of the feeling.

Ironically, emotional expressions that are incredibly easy to describe with examples (e.g., “OMG he is so sad, he can’t stop crying”) are particularly challenging to interpret through indisputable behavioral and neurological evidence. Recall from chapter three and Principle #14 (p. 50) the multi-level, hierarchical nature of neurological activation, occurring systemically or individually and interdependently at five activity levels: genetic, synaptic, autonomic, skeletal, and cognitive. This means different emotions can have identical somatic and behavioral markers, the same emotions can activate different reactions between individuals, and the same individual can exhibit different behaviors while reacting to the same emotion! Beside definitions, scholars and philosophers debate what is necessary or sufficient to be considered an emotional episode, what does or does not constitute an emotion, and the sequential or discontinuous etiology of emotional paths (Moors, 2010). Additional concerns examine the automatic and implicit nature of emotion and what is responsible for individual differences in emotional behavior. For example, when does the dislike of a person evolve into the emotion of hate? Remedially, when do emotions result in stable belief change and can the belief change be reversed? While many of these questions have been answered through empirical research, as MDs, we care less about these philosophical and rhetorical musings and more about practicality.

Pragmatically, knowledge of emotion is helpful to the MD for at least three reasons. First, emotion helps diagnosis motivational issues. Emotion and motivation are both influenced by the relationship between the individual and his or her physical and psychological surroundings (Parkinson, 1995). From a causal perspective, excluding evaluation of emotion may skew the interpretation of motivated behavior. Second, inferences based upon emotional episodes and emotional expressions reveal the substance of motivational beliefs. By example, if you observed a person being assaulted in public and the bystanders elected not to intervene, you might contend that the bystanders lacked the physical ability to help, had little empathy for the victim, or held the belief that people should fend for themselves. Alternatively, you might have surmised that the bystanders had exceptional ability to regulate emotion. Although the precise bystander motive would be unknown, clearly you could rule out courage and bravery as compelling motives of the bystanders. Third, although research and corresponding inferences frequently focus on how to mediate performance-inhibiting emotions, such as anger and anxiety, many positive emotions, including happiness and pride, are contextually bound and result in performance enhancements. Knowledge of the circumstances and conditions necessary to promote positive emotions are a valuable addition to the MD’s strategic repertoire, especially when responsible for enhancing the knowledge or productivity of others.

Awareness of the signs and symptoms of many emotions is key to diagnostic precision; however, the ongoing focus here is on why and how emotion-provoking events are appraised differently among individuals leading to wide performance and behavior fluctuations. The remainder of the chapter emphasizes the subjective appraisal of contextual and social variables motivating the individual to express actionable behavior that may differ in both intensity and direction. I concentrate on the critical question of which factors individuals consider when evaluating their environments, leading to a variety of motives for their ensuing emotional expression. Last, the role of emotional regulation is discussed, including how to orchestrate contexts that promote adaptive self-regulation of emotion to enhance learning and performance.

Principle #44—Emotional reactions are localized, subjective, and learned

“There are good days and there are bad days, and this is one of them.”

Lawrence Welk

“In the hopes of reaching the moon, men fail to see the flowers that blossom at their feet.”

Albert Schweitzer

Emotions are powerful motives that prompt us to take actions that might be suppressed in absence of the emotion. The emotionally instigated behaviors we exhibit are frequently in direct response to contextual cues emanating from our surrounding virtual and physical environments. We evaluate our surroundings by making cognitive appraisals and judgments, often based on our implicit values and beliefs. Through selective attention to goal-directed and personally salient cues, individuals subjectively discriminate and instantly appraise the people, places, and things they encounter. Perceptions of the affective quality of an event occur as quickly as within 25 milliseconds of evaluating an environmental stimulus (Bargh, 1997). However, what we perceive varies remarkably among individuals.

For instance, when entering a workplace meeting or university classroom, we must decide where to sit. We likely choose a spot based upon who is in the room, the impression we want to give to others, and the degree of comfort we have contributing to the impending discussion. Imagine seeing chairs lined up along the perimeter walls with one big table in the middle of the room. For some, this scenario might be appraised as an opportunity to sit back, be passive, and blend in with the crowd. A radically different perception would result when encountering a cluster of four chairs around small oval tables. The more intimate set-up may evoke an appraisal of apprehension and anxiety for some individuals, while instilling opportunities to excel in others. Based upon our cultural perspectives, social proclivities, past experiences, and contextual emotions, environments will be perceived as contributory or inhibitory to our objectives, assisting or forestalling progress toward desired personal goals. Ultimately, some individuals will favor perimeter positions at a large table, avoiding interaction as much as possible, while others will relish in the intimacy of quad seating. For some, the seating arrangement is opportunistic, contributing to feelings of pride, egoism, and enhanced efficacy. Others might cringe, riddled with trepidation and disdain, as the quad configuration could lead to unwanted attention, obligatory participation, and possibly result in embarrassment and shame for conceptual mistakes or social blunders.

Brosch, Pourtois, and Sandler (2010) described the evaluation of perceptions as the process of “categorization,” or creating an internal mental representation that “activates certain categories in the mind” (p. 378). The categorical appraisals we develop about stimuli are largely consistent with our current mood and emotional states (Tamir & Robinson, 2007). Each emotion is aligned with a set of personally appraised consequences and contingencies varying between and within individuals. Categorization of emotions ranges from the simplistic “approach or avoid” designations that we make (Nesse & Ellsworth, 2009) to a long list of naturally occurring, culturally universal emotions (Barrett, 2006). Most contemporary approaches suggest a phylogeny of at least 12 primary emotions (see Table 9.1) that broadly represent dozens of discrete subordinate feelings with corresponding behavioral implications (Neese, 2004).

However, activating affect is not as simplistic as making a choice between two dichotomous attributes. Affect exists along a continuum of appraisals, which are not mutually exclusive. The absence of negative ruminations does not necessarily imply the presence of positive affect, nor does a dominantly pessimistic outlook exclude the probability of positivity. Instead, emotions fluctuate and evolve along at least two dimensions: potency and frequency. Potency is the subjective experience of emotional intensity and operates independent of frequency, which refers to the amount or prevalence of a particular emotion. Differences in potency suggest, for instance, that you may be conspicuously more afraid and take quicker and more decisive avoidant action when encountering a vicious stare from a drooling lion than when being watched through the eyes of a harmless housefly. Conversely, the types of reactions we exhibit to similar stimuli are fairly consistent and predictable. People who experience high positive emotional intensity also frequently experience high negative intensity. For example, when analyzing the nature of positive affect, Diener, Larsen, Levine, and Emmons (1985) concluded:

Those who are high in frequency of positive affect and high in intensity tend to feel exuberance and joy, whereas those high in frequency but low in intensity experience contentment and serenity. Those who are low on frequency and high in intensity often experience depression. Low-frequency persons who are also low in intensity experience affect characterized by mild unhappiness (p. 1263).

Consequently, we may reasonably assume that the ontological consistency of some primary emotions may yield stereotypical behaviors (Brosch et al., 2010). By example, angry people almost always yell and get red in the face. The predictability of biological and behavioral correlates of some emotions has led some researchers to conclude that emotion is trait-like (Frick & White, 2008; Petrides, Pita, & Kokkinaki, 2007). However, even when emotional expression is engendered in personality, variability in behavior is often observed (Kaspar & König, 2012). The categorical consistency of emotion is a function of intensity. When intensity is experimentally removed from the emotional equation, significant negative correlations between positive and negative affect result (Denier et al., 1985): Reactions to the same stimuli may differ within the same individual, and different responses to identical stimuli are often observed between individuals. Unfortunately for the MD, there is no convenient chart or fixed list of behaviors associating particular emotions with a triggered response (Moors, 2010). The more relevant question is this: What triggers a particular emotion in a particular person, and how do individuals evaluate information that results in emotionally-charged behavior?

Scholars vigorously debate the temporality of emotional reactions, with one perspective suggesting that initial physiological reactions to an environmental event precede any emotional expression, while an alternative view champions the primacy of antecedent emotions as the trigger for physiological change. Regardless of sequence, the trajectory of emotional expression arguably follows a predictable and learned pattern. First, almost all emotional events are preceded by a definable interaction between the person and the environment. Second, a subjective and localized cognitive appraisal occurs based on the situational nature and circumstances of the environmental event. The appraisal process consists of assigning emotions and a set of emotional responses to the event. The valence of the emotional ascription is influenced primarily by specific semantic and affective memories associated with a similar circumstance. During the appraisal process, individuals differentiate and evaluate historical representations of the event. Individuals will be motivated to avoid or escape environmental triggers that previously either resulted in negative feelings or outcomes or when the individual perceives the emotional trigger to be inconsistent with his or her cultural values and idiosyncratic beliefs. Conversely, individuals may be motivated to strive toward approaching environmental targets when similar past experience has been personally rewarding or pleasantly evaluated.

Third, bodily responses will accompany the emotional activation. Changes in physiology may be at the obvious behavioral level as evidenced by radical shifts in facial expression; body language or dyspnea, such as when someone is crying from shame or humiliation; or gloating with pride and ambition after winning a competitive event. Other bodily changes may have less obvious somatic markers, such as heart rate escalation, pupil dilation, or fluctuations in breathing patterns, such as when a person experiences anxiety or fear. Physiological arousal will also occur at the concealed neurological and synaptic levels, as changes in hormonal levels and neurotransmissions will occur in the sympathetic nervous system, as the brain and the mind coordinate the appropriate response to the emotionally activated event.

Finally, the congenial partnership of mind and body activates emotional expression and a corresponding motor response, as the individual actively seeks to physically or psychologically approach or avoid the target of their desire. Sometimes referred to as “core affect” (Russell, 2003), the resultant behavior is energized by the target, leading to a conscious continuum of emotional expression based upon fluctuating feelings determined through subjective experience. The premise of core affect implies that certain emotions lead to culturally predictable, prototypical behaviors with minimal variation of expression across individuals. For example, across cultures, jealousy imbues insecurity, while love begets joy. Through consistent and rapid appraisal and vigilance, core affect propels the individual to take action, until the emotionally catalyzed goal is satisfied. In total, the individual experiences an affectively-induced cycle that is sequential, perceptual, evaluative, and discriminatory. The cycle is largely conditioned through personal experience, but mediated by the social norms and contextual conditions that precipitated the emotional event.

Ambiguous or unfamiliar stimuli present a host of integrative responses that are far less predictable of affective valence or ensuing behavior. When an individual lacks a clear mental representation of how event causality leads to certain emotional and behavioral progressions, the concrete appraisal algorithm used with familiar stimuli is no longer a viable reconciliation method. Instead, individuals proceed guardedly, and sometimes automatically, when evaluating the salient and existing mental representations of an environmental event. Contextual appraisals are guided, in part, by attitudinal bias toward a target, situational goals, personal risk propensity, and overall domain knowledge (Rubio, Hernández, and Márquez, 2013). The specific contingencies to which a person attends are governed by the characteristics of the person and the situation and also by the strength with which potential emotions might influence subsequent behavior. Individuals have a proclivity to focus more attention, and show less ability to ignore, those factors that imply threat than to disregard neutral or positive stimuli (Rothermund, Wentura, & Bak, 2001).

A caveat to the universal sequential and serial path of emotional expression is the reality that some emotions may be triggered subconsciously, with no active awareness of what caused the emotional response (Berridge & Winkielman, 2003). Automatic responses occur when individuals merely consider the perceptual features of a stimulus or when spontaneous thinking occurs. Automatic responses can be innate and impulsive, such as the automatic fleeing behavior exercised in the face of danger. Strong evidence suggests that even with seemingly emotionally neutral objects and events, we are predisposed to certain biased judgments and make implicit affective evaluations in order to make sense of our surrounding environments. Using simulated measures, such as the Emotional Stroop test (McKenna & Sharma, 1995), which consists of naming the font color of a word irrespective of the word meaning, shows that individuals rely heavily on implicit cues and unconscious evaluations when making emotionally-laden appraisals. The Emotional Stroop test results show consistent patterns of longer response latency for color naming of threat-related words, such as “abuse,” “gloom,” and “evil,” more so than for neutral words, such as “bank,” “marble,” or “dirt.” Results of this nature support the conclusion that seemingly neutral objects and experiences are infused with an “emotional flavor” that potentially influences perceptions and impacts the focus and efficiency of cognition. In other words, affective ascriptions have cognitive consequences, which the seasoned MD knows are often associated with corresponding motivational implications.

Most importantly, intense emotion influences attentional focus and memory (Levine & Edelstein, 2010). Although results vary across studies, typically heightened levels of attention are associated with elevated levels of emotional experience. However, focused attention does not guarantee learning or knowledge retention. During affective arousal, individuals have a tendency to remember main ideas, sometimes referred to as “the gist,” but have difficulty recalling peripheral details associated with a task or event (Kensinger, Garoff-Eaton, & Schacter, 2007). Many explanations for the qualitative influence of emotion on attentional resources and downstream memory processing suggest better memory of central ideas results from heightened arousal, but at the cost of a narrowing cognitive focus that usurps precious working-memory resources, limiting memory capacity needed to recall details. Emotional valence also has cognitive implications. Unified behavioral observation and biopsychological evidence confirm that negative events are recalled more accurately than positive ones (Kensinger, 2009), with differences between emotional type exerting the greatest influence on what is remembered and why. Ultimately, the influence of emotion on performance motives is undeniable; however, in order to use emotional cues as a mediating strategy tool, specific emotions should be considered.

Principle #45—Anxiety and boredom are performance-restricting culprits

Anxiety

The irrefutable outcome of emotional appraisal is motivated action. The emotional valence associated with a particular context, person, or task will empower individuals to actively seek and pursue certain positively evaluated targets while vehemently avoiding negative others. While most emotions have motivational consequences, those emotions empirically shown to enhance or inhibit performance motivation, especially those emotions that may be within the jurisdiction of the MD’s influence and control, are of greatest interest. Emotions, such as jealousy, greed, or grief, are vital to understanding human behaviors but are beyond the scope of feasible intervention by the MD. In lieu of the dozens of reviews and meta-analyses completed on specific or contextual emotions (Baas, De Dreu, & Nijstad, 2008; Pekrun, Goetz, Titz, & Perry, 2002; Stankowich & Blumstein, 2005; Wittouck, Van Autreve, De Jaegere, Portzky, & van Heeringen, 2011), the focus here is on two of the greatest classroom culprits contributing to disengagement and mediocre academic performance; anxiety and boredom. Despite the seemingly antithetical nature of these two sentiments, both avoidance emotions are perpetuated by maladaptive motives, albeit for vastly different reasons.

Anxiety, the most frequently researched performance inhibitor (Beck, 2004), is an affective response exemplified behaviorally by uneasiness or nervousness as a result of an encountered stimulus or event perceived as threatening or unpleasant. Anxiety can originate from multiple sources, but frequently, performance anxiety develops based on a recurring history of task failure or unrealistic performance expectations from parents or teachers (Wigfield & Eccles, 1989). Heritability of anxiety-related personality traits is common, with 40% of anxiety occurrence attributed to genetic variations, as evidenced by studies of genetic twins (Hettema, Neale, & Kendler, 2001). Individuals also exhibit environmentally-induced genetic susceptibility to anxiety through hyperexcitability to aversive stimuli, coupled with increased activity in the fear receptors of the brain (Gross & Hen, 2004). Behaviorally, anxiety occurs most often when negative outcomes are anticipated during a performance task. Anxiety may develop during an actual threat encountered by an individual, or anxiety can be triggered merely by the expectation of a threat, in the absence of a specific environmental peril (Bandura, 1988).

Identifying sources of anxiety is relevant for potential mediation of anxiety. State anxiety is situational in nature, environmentally triggered, and often experienced when encountering unfamiliar performance contexts, when facing tasks deemed overly complex, or when attempting challenges beyond one’s perceived skill level (Onwuegbuzie & Wilson, 2003). State anxiety is a malleable and predictable form of anxiety, since similar contextual conditions evoke prototypical behaviors and affect, such as the sweaty palms and stomach cramps that accompany worry and apprehension. By example, a person who habitually fears any computer-related task or an otherwise academically successful student who freezes at the thought of certain types of calculus problems would be characterized as exhibiting state anxiety. Trait anxiety is both static and stable, akin to an enduring personality characteristic, and is less amenable to intervention than state anxiety (Chen, Gully, Whiteman, & Kilcullen, 2006). Individuals with trait-like anxiety have nonspecific, generalized anxiety across multiple performance domains. Trait-like anxiety can be especially devastating for performance because irrespective of skill or competency beliefs, individuals plagued with stable and recurring trait anxiety will routinely exhibit inferior performance, especially during higher-order and creative thinking tasks, which are integral to performance success in many domains (Byron & Khazanchi, 2011).

Regardless of source, anxiety inhibits optimal performance for at least three reasons, which directly correspond with plummeting performance motivation. A primary consequence of anxiety is excessive worry, defined as “any cognitive expression of concern about one’s own performance” (Liebert & Morris, 1967, p. 975). Preoccupation with worry results in intrusive thoughts concerning the self and self-criticism of competence, leading to attributions of failure based on low ability (Covington, 2009). Anxiety is causally linked to lower self-efficacy, leading to performance apathy and task avoidant motivation due to the anticipation of aversive task consequences (Bandura, 1988; Hoffman, 2010). Second, highly anxious individuals have little choice but to allocate finite working-memory resources to anxiety reduction, in turn limiting the allocation of cognitive resources toward effortful learning and performance (Eysenck & Calvo, 1992). Third, highly anxious individuals use less efficient and productive learning strategies, relying instead on cognitively costly working-memory dependent strategies, such as basic rehearsal (Pekrun et al., 2002). Presumably, the highly anxious individual has a decreased ability to self-monitor and is easily distracted by personal ruminations leading to an altered focus on task-relevant cues needed to resolve academic and performance concerns (Pintrich & DeGroot, 1990). In aggregate, anxiety generates numerous cognitive consequences, interfering with the ability to maintain a clear task focus.

Fortunately, not all performance anxiety is debilitating. A moderate amount of anxiety can actually enhance performance outcomes in many domains due to a heightened state of arousal that directs attention to salient task demands (Wilson, 2012). The familiar “clutch performances” typically observed in athletic and military arenas illustrate the benefits of performance under stressful evaluative conditions. Anxiety advantages are realized when an individual demonstrates the ability to regulate and focus attentional resources during a performance episode (Janelle & Hatfield, 2008). Performance is thought to be enhanced under conditions of moderate anxiety because some individuals are better able to monitor and address the heightened arousal that is promulgated by their anxiety. These individuals use the moderate anxiety as a motivational catalyst to increase effort because they believe they have the ability and control to use moderate anxiety as a coping strategy to enhance performance outcomes (Carver & Scheier, 1988). Anxiety-controlling advantages are typically realized by individuals with greater domain expertise and more expansive working-memory capacity (Eysenck & Calvo, 1992; Hoffman & Schraw, 2009), as these individuals are more efficient managers of the increased cognitive load that accompanies demanding performance challenges. Unfortunately, individuals with less expertise, those lacking focused attentional resources, or those perceiving a lack of control over their performance context, succumb to the debilitating effects of performance anxiety. Corroborating biopsychological and behavioral evidence suggests that physiological and cognitive arousal reaches a point of diminishing returns, with optimal performance across performance tasks generally observed at 60% to 70% of maximum arousal (Arent & Landers, 2003; Wilson, Smith, & Holmes, 2007). Once the threshold of manageable anxiety is surpassed, performance suffers even for the most experienced and skilled performers and athletes.

Operating under the generalized conclusion that as levels of anxiety increase, performance accuracy and relative efficiency suffer, it behooves educators to take proactive actions to discount or eliminate the perception of threat and ensuing anxiety. Straightforward instructional approaches, such as creating clarity in learning objectives, welcoming mistakes during learning, and giving learners the ability to self-pace knowledge building, are some of the many well-supported strategies that can temper the impact of academic anxiety (Stipek, 1998). Hallett and Hoffman (2014), in a review of optimal performance strategies in business domains, revealed that through a series of proactive routines and rituals, individuals can quell performance anxiety and mitigate the anxious feelings that accompany high-pressure performance demonstrations. By using pretask visualization of the performance process, monitoring on-board effectiveness of performance, and employing a structured methodology to know in advance what might go awry, the probability of an anxiety-neutral peak performance is improved. Further, Graesser and D’Mello (2012), in a series of studies using the intelligent tutoring system “AutoTutor” for complex learning, found that the computerized monitoring of facial expressions and body language can easily detect instances of educational “impasse” (p. 189), which are essentially instances of escalating emotion (i.e., anxiety) that frequently lead to cognitive disengagement. These innovative emotion-sensitive technologies show substantial promise to not only seamlessly detect emotions during computer-based learning, but also to automatically modulate content difficulty based on emotional cues as a means to reduce anxiety and forestall learner disengagement.

Boredom

The heightened arousal realized during many anxiety-ridden performances is, perhaps, the antithesis of the disengagement experienced during bouts of instructional boredom—one of the few emotions to be experienced more frequently than anxiety in school (Goetz, Frenzel, Pekrun, Hall, & Lüdtke, 2007). When individuals encounter learning content or performance opportunities that they subjectively perceive as unpleasant, indifferent, lacking value, or useless, cognitive and/or behavioral disengagement typically follows. Feelings that accompany boredom include a deactivating cognitive focus, memory lapse, distractibility, apathy, lethargy, and the physical desire to extricate one’s self from the aversive source of boredom (Nett, Goetz, & Hall, 2011; Pekrun, Goetz, Daniels, Stupnisky, & Perry, 2010; Pekrun, Hall, Goetz, & Perry, 2014). Surprisingly, boredom is highly correlated with anger, but unlike anger that usually triggers motivation toward the egregious target, boredom is a negative emotion highly related to avoidance and escape motives and behavior (Goetz et al., 2007).

The effects of boredom are pervasive and severe. In a study using the experience sampling approach, which intermittently asks individuals to report how they feel and what they are doing at predetermined time intervals, 58% of students reported some degree of boredom during instruction, while only 6% indicated never being bored (Goetz et al., 2014). Contingent upon the source and culture of investigation, boredom is an instigating factor in 32% to 50% of individuals who drop out of school (Larson & Richards, 1991; Wegner, Flisher, Chikobvu, Lombard, & King, 2008). The incidence, severity and consequence of boredom are further echoed in nonacademic domains. Work and organizational boredom has been reported in as high as 87% of the workforce, and boredom is linked to organizational malcontent, reduced work effort, high turnover, and lowered perceptions of organizational support (van Hooff & van Hooft, 2014). Workers are hard pressed to conceal the emotional malaise of boredom, as the emotion is related to feelings of “underemployment” and individuals self-reporting boredom consistently earn lower performance ratings from their supervisors (Watt & Hargis, 2010). Boredom is not only experienced in obligatory ventures, such as work and school; it is experienced far more frequently in leisure activities than in work (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997). The apathy of adolescence, which many times is a derivative of boredom, leads to risky and unhealthy behaviors, such as substance abuse and delinquency (Wegner & Flisher, 2009). Perhaps an even more revealing consequence of boredom is the disturbing incidence of higher degrees of boredom in psychiatric and neurologically challenged populations (Goldberg, Eastwood, LaGuardia, & Danckert, 2011), which suggests that boredom may be contributory to mental illness.

Boredom differs from lack of interest, based upon the polarity of the emotional valence. The avoidant behaviors associated with boredom are actually the converse of the approach behaviors associated with interest (Pekrun et al., 2014). Learners actively seek out domains found to be of interest and value while passively ignoring topics lacking interest. Bored learners do not loathe uninteresting topics but, instead, find little value or meaning in many of their academic endeavors. Tilburg and Igou (2012) investigated the unique experiential nature of boredom by asking learners to describe and rate their feelings during instances of boredom. Analysis of results showed a consistent pattern of feelings of questionable utility and lower perceived value of knowledge, leading to the conclusion that “boredom—experienced in educational settings, work settings, leisure contexts, and while being alone—involves feeling restless and unchallenged at the same time, while thinking that the situation serves no purpose” (p. 191).

A preponderance of evidence indicates that bored learners achieve less, have lower academic engagement, and exert less effort (Linnebrink, 2007). However, contrary to some misconceptions, the occurrence of boredom is not relegated to only those learners with exceptional ability. Instead, most studies suggest that boredom is more frequently observed in low-achieving students, and after controlling for other variables, such as prior achievement, gender, and age, boredom and achievement show significant reciprocal relations (Pekrun et al., 2014). In other words, a dual relationship exists between boredom and academic achievement. Boredom may cause lower achievement, and conversely inferior academic performance may be the catalyst for boredom. Regardless of temporality, academic performance suffers when learners are bored.

Boredom originates from a number of sources that are within the direct control and influence of educators. Learners report boredom during monotonous teacher-centered instruction (Larson & Richards, 1991) and in situations where teachers tend to dominate instruction by using a top-down pedagogical style, such as typically observed during direct instruction, thus limiting the extent of learner involvement with instructional choices and content (Fallis & Opotow, 2003). Student–teacher relationships and the extent of positive attitudes toward content may also become a catalyst for boredom. Disengagement and boredom are highly probable when students dislike their teacher or when they appraise a teaching style unfavorably. Boredom is rampant when content is perceived as particularly challenging or irrelevant, such during advanced mathematics instruction (Daschmann, Goetz, & Stupnisky, 2011). The control-value theory of academic emotions (Pekrun et al., 2002; Pekrun et al., 2014) suggests that students with perceived low levels of control over their instructional fates are especially vulnerable to episodes of boredom. Reduced control means that learners believe they have limited influence over the nature of instructional challenges and outcomes. Incongruence between learners and instructors results in boredom when material is perceived as overly demanding, resulting in cognitive disengagement due to complexity, while being underchallenged may imply minimal demands on learners, resulting in questionable teacher “withedness,” which occurs when instructors are disconnected from the necessary pace or activity levels needed by their learners (Kounin, 1970).

Considering the deleterious outcomes of boredom, conscious effort toward eliminating circumstantial factors that contribute to boredom should prove fruitful for learning and engagement. Clearly, the minimization of boredom depends on creating meaningful and challenging learning opportunities through the appropriate calibration of instruction with learner needs and expertise. Additionally, intentional strategies can be used to offset the inevitable emotional consequences of boredom. First, learners must appraise instructional content as relevant and authentic. Ideally, when mastering content, learners should reach the conclusion that knowledge acquisition is inspiring and practical and has an applied value. Second, learners need the perception of at least some degree of control over the educational process and the associated outcomes of their cognitive effort. Enhanced learner engagement can be realized by creating an autonomy-supportive teaching environment that offers learners involvement in instructional and assessment choices (Jang, Reeve, & Deci, 2010). The calibration of instruction with learner interest and expertise can be accomplished by paying specific attention to the cognitive complexity of instructional goals and learning materials. Formative assessment strategies, such as polling learners, asking clarifying questions, promoting collaborative learning, and assessing the intentions of learners, are some well-supported instructional strategies (Black & Williams, 2009) that may eliminate or reduce boredom. Many learners, when bored, seek solace through empathy with their equally bored peers, subsequently shifting attentional resources from learning goals to interactions with other individuals. Efforts toward structuring a learning context that eliminates distractions will contribute to the self-regulation of boredom, based merely on the opportunistic physical composition of the learning environment, or as the band The Offspring declared in their song Come out and Play, “You gotta keep ’em separated!”

Finally, both boredom and elevated levels of anxiety promote a similar avoidance motivation, where learners seek to disengage from the source of their discontent as a means to regulate their negative affect. Thus, two approaches may be viable alternatives to promoting engagement. The MD may deliberately elect to circumvent negative cognitive appraisals and the behavioral withdrawal associated with boredom and anxiety by trying to eliminate noxious and boredom-provoking stimuli, or instead choose to create a learning environment that generates positive emotion. Although the evidence is mixed concerning the role of emotional valence and achievement (Linnenbrink, 2007), the latter strategy can effectively induce an approach motivation, the next topic of investigation.

Principle #46—Positive affect is a powerful performance determinant

“Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities.”

Aldous Huxley

Knowing some of the familiar and enduring consequences of negative affect, it seems appropriate that the seasoned MD would focus on identifying ways to eradicate anxiety, eliminate boredom, and reduce stress perceptions. In reality, the subjective nature of emotional appraisals and the total removal of contextual and behavioral cues that prompt negativity is conceptually idealistic and logically improbable. Instead, the MD is faced with a tactical decision: If the MD wishes to defer or subdue subjective appraisals of anxiety, boredom, or stress, catalysts for negative emotion can be identified and potentially mitigated. Alternatively, a prudent and potentially more rewarding strategy is to orchestrate an environment that emboldens positivity. A deeper understanding of how individuals appraise their contextual conditions suggests that cultivating positive emotions, in contrast to simply suppressing negative affect, is a more advantageous option with resounding long-term benefits that contribute to optimal psychological functioning.

“Broaden and build” theories suggest that unlike eliminating negative emotions through primarily psychological and homeostatic reconciliation, positive experience broadens personal perceptions, thoughts, and actions (Fredrickson, 2001). The positive experience contributes to the growth of individual physical, emotional and intellectual resources, a contingency unlikely when removing avoidant, negative emotions. Pursuit of positive affect aligns with an “approach” motivation where people deliberately seek out new tasks and opportunities that expand their horizons, unlike the restrictive attentional and narrow focus exhibited when individuals fixate on dispelling toxic anxiety. Individuals motivated by positive experience tend to be more socially focused and confident. The positive motive induces frequency and receptivity for love, laughter, and having fun (Gable & Haidt, 2005). Further, unlike distracting negative affect, which is abated when a goal target is reached (e.g., you are no longer frantic and panicking after your corrupted computer document is fixed), positive affect promotes enduring memories that outlast the triggering event and continues to motivate the individual long after that loving feeling is gone (Cohn & Fredrickson, 2009).

Motivational Leader—Alec Torelli

image On the surface, Alec Torelli seems just like any other friendly guy; he is bright, talkative, and sincere, with a cheery disposition and an affable approach to life’s challenges and obstacles. In other words, in many ways he exemplifies the type of person described by the “broaden and build” view of motivation. However, Alec Torelli is no “ordinary” guy. Hailing from Orange County, California, he attended Southern Methodist University, but at the age of only 19 years, he decided to change his life and pursue his dream of financial and personal independence by becoming a professional poker player.

Alec has played over 2,000,000 hands of poker, winning tournaments around the world while cashed out at nine final tables, including twice at the World Series of Poker and twice at the World Poker Tournament. Today, he is considered a world-class poker champion, who, by age of 27 years, had collected over $3,000,000 in tournament winnings. Alec, however, is not like the slick, commercialized, and animated characters portrayed on television; instead, he is an anomaly—he does not play poker for fame or notoriety.

Alec’s goals are far greater than being a top-notch player. For Alec success is not just about being a winner in poker but being a winner in life. Winning means feeling adequate, loved, healthy, and financially free to live the life he wants—a life filled with freedom, excitement, and choices. Alec craves the independence of being his own boss, free to follow his passions and dreams. At the apex of his poker career, when he was cashing in on every tournament, he had a catharsis; there is more to one’s success than what happens at the poker table.

He took a hiatus from poker and started to work toward realizing some of his dreams. He gave speeches at universities, competed in an Olympic triathlon, visited 30 countries, learned Italian, trained in yoga in Bali, studied at the Gelato University, met his future wife, and began coaching other poker players. He now thrives on sharing what he has learned with others through his coaching activities, and ironically, helping others allowed Alec to increase his own motivation to play and challenge himself to reach new heights. He has been a coach for over 6 years now and is taking on bigger challenges every day, playing against the heavy hitters at Macau, China, where the best global contenders compete in the largest cash games on the planet.

When asked if he had a message for readers, Alec replied, “Don’t choose a job and try to adjust it around the life you want. Choose a lifestyle and then pick the job that will allow you to make it a reality. Don’t listen to what anyone else wants for you and your future. Trust yourself, and follow your dreams. Life’s too short for anything else.” (A. Torelli, personal communication, October 13, 2014). When not at the poker tables, Alec attains happiness through fitness, tennis, writing, reading, speaking, personal development, health, online marketing, and, of course, traveling the globe pursing his dreams with his adorable wife, Ambra.

The domains of positive psychology and subjective well-being (SWB) empirically demonstrate that individual differences in positive emotions and mood, such as happiness, relaxation, and pleasantness, contribute to consistent and enduring effects on performance in a variety of productive ways. People who report life satisfaction and positive emotions, such as Alec Torelli, have decisive advantages over those who affirm a negative and pessimistic outlook. Positive emotions provide distinct psychological and health benefits, including greater resistance to common cold viruses (Cohen, Doyle, Turner, Alper, & Skoner, 2003), using a broader repertoire of coping strategies (Fredrickson & Joiner, 2002), and earning accolades from others as an indication of being more social, creative, and likable (Lyubomirsky, King, & Diener, 2005). Individuals with higher measurable levels of SWB land more job interviews, attain better performance evaluations, and achieve higher career growth than those with lower levels (Lyubomirsky et al., 2005), including making more money (Lucas, Clark, Georgellis, & Diener, 2004). Although it is unclear if money begets well-being or if well-being leads to increased earning opportunity, meta-analytic results from over 100 studies (Pinquart & Sörensen, 2000) indicate that only 3% of the variability in SWB is explained by income level alone. These results, although correlational, imply that SWB is accounted for by many other factors beyond income.

Happiness, a major component of SWB, can not only exert a number of promising influences on optimal performance but also has a host of empirical and interpretative challenges. The primary measurement concern is the implicit and widely held subjective nature of what constitutes happiness. Individuals have extremely diverse representations of what counts as happy and are frequently unable to articulate differences between happiness and other positive emotions. In the 2014 number one hit song Happy, Pharrell Williams invited us to “clap along if you know (emphasis added) what happiness is to you.” Forty-four years earlier, music icon John Lennon suggested that “Happiness is a warm gun,” confounding critics who debated that the lyric had a covert sexual or drug symbolism. Perhaps the breadth of interpretations of happiness comes from the sordid story of Mark Goddard; 14 years after being in a horrendous motorcycle accident, being highly motivated by the apparent lack of suitable health care in the United Kingdom, he built a home-made guillotine and cut off his injured hand after unsuccessfully trying to slice it off with a knife. Mark still was not happy after posing with the amputated consequence of his unresolved happiness motive.

Clearly, defining happiness is exceedingly challenging, highly subjective, and culturally nuanced. Empirically, happiness is considered “a preponderance of positive emotions” (Lyubomirsky et al., 2005, p. 803) but is contingent, at least in part, on the correlation between one’s successful outcomes and those valued by society. In an expansive meta-analytic study that included 293 samples and over 275,000 participants and used cross-sectional, longitudinal, and experimental methods, as well as self-reports and observations from work, school, health, and social contexts, Lyubomirsky and colleagues (2005) revealed that individuals scoring high on empirical measures of positive affect are positively perceived, sociable, likable, cooperative, healthy, and creative. Most important, for achieving optimal performance outcomes, happy people gain satisfaction from life experiences, even when things do not go according to plan. You may have noticed one common theme among all of the individuals profiled in this book. Each looked upon potentially negative experiences as opportunities to excel, not as emotional impediments. Faced with debilitating injuries (Alex Dixon, p. 53), family hardship (LaSonya Moore, p. 117), career diversions (Jessi Colter, p. 221), physical immobility (Amanda Boxtel, p. 358), and horrendous racial prejudice and discrimination (Robert Knowling, Jr., p. 317), these motivational leaders anticipated fluctuations in their happiness and used the ebbs and flows of affective life as opportunities to reverse their fortunes and restore psychological equilibrium through deliberate action.

Emerging evidence from neuropsychology supports the power of SWB and shows that biological markers substantiate the value of positive affect. Individuals with higher levels of reported SWB cognitively demonstrate greater levels of creative thinking (Amabile, Barsade, Mueller, & Staw, 2005) and enhanced problem-solving ability compared with dysphoric participants (Subramaniam & Vinogradov, 2013). Under duress, positive affect is related to using more adaptive coping behaviors (Isen, 2009), providing physiological evidence for the observed resilience described by many of our motivational leaders. Most revealing are highly targeted studies that measure heart rate variability and differences in neural signals between the brain and the pathways of the autonomic nervous system. Studies generally conclude that cardiac rhythms vary in intensity, ranging from erratic spiking oscillations when individuals are aroused and stressed, to the symmetrically smooth and wavelike oscillations observed when individuals experience harmonious and spiritual positive affect (McCraty, 2005; McCraty, Atkinson, Tomasino, & Bradley, 2005). These biological studies support the mythical affective nirvana experienced when falling in love: Heart rate variability results indicate that the heart really does skip a beat when the person is in love! Now, armed with the power of positive affect and the realization that, regardless of emotional valence, emotional deception is highly unlikely, we turn inward again, discussing how to regulate our emotions and those of others to enhance the probability of reaching desired learning and performance outcomes.

Principle #47—Individuals restructure affect to regulate their emotions

Leveraging the power of positive emotion as a prevailing influence on performance requires vigilant monitoring and regulation of emotion-provoking stimuli. Emotional regulation requires changes in the cognitive appraisal of an emotion, redirecting attentional focus, and modifying counterproductive behavioral or physiological responses to the emotion (Mauss, Bunge, & Gross, 2007). Russell (2003) contended that emotional regulation involves consciously altering the appraisal and assessment of an environmental event from one category or valence to another, effectively neutralizing the impact of the environmental “object” (p. 146). Pragmatically, regulation of emotion and the associated channeling of energy that follows emotional restructuring, serves the purpose of altering core affect from a negative to a positive state, diminishing the impact or eliminating the consequence of the event on performance. During restructuring, the individual strives to create an emotional homeostasis, allowing the regulator to be psychologically unencumbered by the potential consequences of the negative emotion. The process of regulation rations and appropriates depletable cognitive resources away from the emotion-inducing stimulus, allowing the individual to maximize cognitive focus and common-sense thinking toward achieving one’s desired performance goal.

Individuals presented with emotion-restructuring opportunities have at least two choices. After being cut off in traffic, a person can metaphorically roll up the window and drive on, or succumb to anger, shouting out the window at the target of his or her contempt. An adaptive response to an emotional trigger is realized by using problem-solving volitional strategies, such as restructuring one’s environments and removing distractions when necessary, engaging in reassuring self-talk, or consciously suppressing negativity (Corno, 2004). Concurrently, during restructuring, individuals may search for positive contingencies in a negative situation, otherwise known as finding the proverbial “silver lining in the dark cloud.” Alternatively, and at the expense of positive affect, individuals may resort to emotion-dependent coping strategies that are motivationally maladaptive because emotion-dependent strategies impede progress toward performance goals and, instead, invest cognitive resources in battling the negative emotion. Emotion-dependent behaviors include the self-handicapping strategies described in Chapter 8, such as defensive pessimism, or displaying stereotypical emotion-consequent behaviors, such as crying or anger-induced rage (Boekaerts, 2007). These behaviors are cognitively costly and highly detrimental, doing little to help achieve one’s performance goals.

Several of our motivational leaders described the use of productive volitional control strategies while consciously avoiding reliance on more maladaptive coping strategies. Alec Torelli described deliberately folding a questionable hand, thus minimizing his financial loss and avoiding the negative emotional consequences of playing a weak hand too long into the game. Alec uses the quick-fold strategy as one part of an overall emotion-regulating routine to avoid deflecting his focus from analyzing the hands of his opponents or calculating the probabilities of winning: key components for victory. Similarly, many of Bernie Madoff’s transgressions demonstrated volitional strategies to regulate emotion. For instance, Madoff lacked interest in a law career but tolerated a year of law school, mostly to appease his father, while concurrently using the lessons from an unpleasant law school experience to progress toward his ultimate career goal of becoming an investment analyst. Further, Bernie demonstrated steadfast emotional regulation, as evidenced by his logical approach when he described the details of his crimes without animosity despite his projected lifetime incarceration.

Although the two examples described above involve conscious and deliberate appraisal and restructuring of emotion-provoking stimuli, in many cases, negative affective control and ensuing emotional regulation can occur implicitly and automatically. Automatic regulation involves changing “emotions without making a conscious decision to do so, without paying attention to the process of regulating one’s emotions, and without engaging in deliberate control” (Mauss et al., 2007, p. 148). Automaticity of emotion is adaptive and contributes to performance because individuals can quickly and succinctly engage their preferred coping strategies without shifting attention away from the task at hand. Automaticity of emotional regulation can be observed and measured by exposing individuals to subliminal affective primes, such as a smiling face (Winkielman, Berridge, & Wilbarger, 2005) and descriptive adjectives (Bargh, 2006), and even by using olfactory primes, such as citrus fruits and coconuts (Smeets & Dijksterhuis, 2014). During priming, individuals unwittingly exhibit affective response patterns toward experimenter-determined goals without consciously recognizing that their behaviors have been manipulated and without knowing the reasons for their behaviors, sometimes even when debriefed about the purpose of the prime. Behaviors induced by affective priming are confirmed by biopsychological evidence (Li, Zinbarg, Boehm, & Paller, 2008) and have been shown to enhance motivation and activate or accelerate basic behaviors, including eating (Harris, Brownell, & Bargh, 2009) and cleaning (Holland, Hendriks, & Aarts, 2005), and the willingness to cooperate with others (Bargh, Gollwitzer, Lee-Chai, Barndollar, & Trötschel, 2001).

Recognizing the automatic nature of emotion and motivation is useful, but in all likelihood, spontaneous displays of emotion will not be within the direct control of the MD; instead, the focus will be on the deliberate regulation of emotion. However, the conscious modification of negative affect can also be particularly challenging because individuals must first detect and recognize instances of emerging negative affect. More importantly, the individual must perceive negative affective encounters as temporary obstacles that can be eradicated, rather than as impermeable or insurmountable roadblocks that might forestall goal attainment. Coping with negative affect requires a strong belief in the ability to exercise control over one’s environment. In essence, an individual faced with an emotionally-charged event must have the wherewithal to recognize the need to use deliberate and intentional volitional coping strategies, understand the situational applicability and effectiveness of strategies, and know precisely when and how to use the regulatory strategies in the individual’s repertoire.

Even when recognizing the need to use coping and regulatory strategies to control emotional responses, individuals are highly vulnerable to deferring to automatic patterns of affect regulation. In a series of studies, Shiv and Fedorikhin (2002) manipulated experimental conditions to investigate the degree of cognitive deliberation and type of choices individuals made when exposed to affective-laden stimuli. The researchers presented study participants with snacking decisions, offering the opportunity to indulge in high-calorie treats, such as chocolate cake or pizza, versus more innocuous and potentially healthier choices, such as fruit salad or soup. The researchers hypothesized that when individuals have time and available cognitive resources to contemplate the long-term consequences of choosing cake or fruit salad, they will make the reflective and conscientious choice of salad, knowing that cake and pizza are poor nutritional choices. The authors also speculated that when individuals were mentally preoccupied or when needing to make a quick decision, they would choose the affectively laden cake or pizza because of their preoccupation with other thoughts or the perception of pressure, disallowing a contemplative and well-reasoned cognitive choice. The researchers’ hypotheses were confirmed and interpreted as meaning that when processing resources are constrained and when individuals have low levels of exposure for a decision, they will rely more on spontaneous emotion and impulse than on the deliberate and regulated emotion and cognitively-related reasoning. This unique study highlights the impulsive nature of decision making, revealing that individuals may not able to regulate emotions effectively, even when possessing the cognitive ability and available resources. This study also reveals why high-margin affectively laden snack choices, such as gum and candy, are found at grocery checkout counters, subliminally priming consumers to make impulsive choices, with little deliberation as they rush to get through the checkout line.

Many instances of emotional regulation are motivated by humans’ inherent quest to experience pleasure and forestall or eliminate pain or discomfort, often described as a hedonistic motive (see Principle #20, p. 64). Although not all instances of emotional regulation are derived in the pursuit of pleasure, during the selection and pursuit of many learning and performance goals, individuals will typically engage in tasks that have sufficient challenge to maintain their interest and utilize their skills, but individuals will also seek tasks which have a strong probability of being completed successfully (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997). Successful task completion invariably contributes to a positive mood and allows individuals to exhibit pride and feel good about their accomplishments. When encountering intrusive personal thoughts or situational and task-contingent obstacles that might interfere with pleasurable outcomes, individuals undergo a series of psychological steps designed to maintain positive emotional homeostasis and regulate their emotion. The regulation process is intended to suppress, repress, reappraise, distract, project, deny, or compartmentalize sources of potential anguish and negative affect (Koole & Kuhl, 2008). In practical terms, when seeking pleasurable experience, learners use volitional strategies that enable them to maintain focus and strive toward predetermined learning and performance goals. Unfortunately, some individuals will succumb to emotional stress and be unable to meet task goals, presumably hampered by the historical legacy of learned failure during similar experiences, as more fully described earlier in this chapter by Principle #44 (p. 240).

As such, individuals exhibit a wide degree of ability differences in coping with emotional events. Research empirically links variability in affective regulation with biological predisposition, revealing that some individuals have personalities that are more prone to affective vacillation than others, hence the royal “drama” moniker ascribed to certain individuals. Extroverted individuals are more likely to display positive affect, with additional biological evidence supporting the presumption that affective regulation and associated emotionally charged behavior follows a pattern of circadian rhythms (Augustine & Larsen, 2015). Variation in affective response is also associated with neurological differences in brain localization, the extent of brain activation during emotional events, and cerebral blood flow, with personality traits, such as the degree of agreeableness or conscientiousness, being related to how an individual responds to an emotional catalyst. Structural differences in the size of brain components are also reliable predictors of how individuals will react to emotional stimuli and can be used to predict the degree of positive or negative affect individuals will display (DeYoung et al., 2010). Although neurological evidence helps confirm the behavioral consequences of emotion, it is still unknown if emotional dysregulation leads to changes in brain structure or if brain structure determines the degree of affective control.

Biological predisposition aside, cultivating adaptive affective regulation that promotes the use of the productive volitional coping strategies can be both orchestrated and taught. First, learners must believe that they have the resources, capability, and capacity to control their performance outcomes. Strong control beliefs are a necessary prerequisite to overcoming the unavoidable negative consequences that accompany some instances of learning and performance, such as subpar test performance or failing to meet one’s academic goals. Control is based upon the foundational premises of control-value theory (Pekrun et al., 2002), and portends that learners correlate their effort with achieving desired results. When feeling in control, learner effort will be increased. Second, the performance outcome must be perceived as having at least some personal value, with pragmatic benefits associated with reaching learning goals. The presumption that elevated personal satisfaction will be attained by reaching academic goals leads to associating positive affect with the learning process. Information or tasks seen as inert or inconsequential for intellectual prosperity will provide little incentive for learners to persevere through the eventual learning potholes ultimately encountered during knowledge acquisition.

Specific physiological, cognitive, and behavioral strategies can help foster positive emotion. Considering that all emotional reactions have a physiological correlate, designing environments that insulate the individual from high-stakes pressure or that outwardly remove controllable stressors seems crucial for the aspiring MD. Individuals can be taught a variety of routines and rituals, such as task visualization, affirmative self-talk, or relaxation imagery, to mediate the physiological symptoms associated with emotional arousal (Hallett & Hoffman, 2014). Cognitive strategies, such as intellectual warm-ups, where learners have conversations about how to strategically overcome performance challenges, and practicing responses for likely problem-solving encounters or learning obstacles are beneficial. The use of savoring strategies (Tugade & Fredrickson, 2007) is particularly helpful and involves learners reminiscing about successful experiences in related domains. Similar to attribution training, savoring relates current performance to past success, allowing the learner to forge connections between current opportunities and past feelings of positive affect and affirmative emotions.

In academic environments, avoiding task ambiguity, giving clear directions, welcoming mistakes, and the elimination of performance pressure (e.g., time restrictions or scoring cutoffs) will aid in the cultivation of positive emotion because learners will understand performance expectations and contingencies in advance. Learners must be convinced that the assessment process is designed to measure progress toward learning goals and is not a punitive measure that leads to negative consequence and damaging self-appraisals of personal ability. Instead, assessment should be used to improve learning outcomes and be perceived as a device that aids in the identification of alternative methods of teaching and learning that will accelerate knowledge gains. If learners believe that the purpose of instruction is to support learning and that assessment is not conducted as a means to punish poor performance, negative emotions associated with testing may be reduced or eliminated.

Straightforward techniques, such as outlining performance expectations, giving learners valid reasons for the inclusion of curricular content, and integrating developing knowledge within a framework of personal learner experience, promote a learning context that is perceived as both practical and valuable. Such strategies also stimulate a learning atmosphere that does not evoke anxiety and is conducive to superior performance (Stipek, 1998). Reducing pressure requires the acceptance that affective regulation is not always possible and is a depletable resource, one that cannot be sustained indefinitely and must be replenished. Learners must realize that the perpetual transformation of negative emotions into positive experience is an unsustainable reality because of the complex and restrictive human cognitive and emotional architecture. We will ultimately encounter self-regulatory hurdles during learning and performance quests that cannot be easily overcome (Baumeister & Heatherton, 1996), hurdles that can interfere with the transitory and fleeting nature of emotional regulation.

Crafting a performance context that promotes and sustains effective regulation of emotion is one critical component contributing to the MD’s overall objective of cultivating instances when the demonstration of peak or optimal performance is probable (see Principle #12, p. 37). When exhibiting peak performance, individuals show complete command of the physical, cognitive, affective, and motivational resources needed to achieve their goals (Privette, 1981). During peak performance, individuals are effectively able to block out emotional intrusions as they flawlessly execute task-contingent skills commensurate with task challenge. When peak performance occurs, emotion is rendered pragmatically inconsequential because the individual is entirely focused on the task at hand and performance is undisturbed by the distracting nature of emotion. In essence, when attaining peak performance, individuals will experience a fully automated state of emotional regulation.

Peak performance is highly idiosyncratic. Researchers studying elite performance across domains (Harmison & Casto, 2012) suggest that a single universal or precise blend of performance criterion that engenders instances of peak performance does not exist; instead, the psychological qualities of elite performance are highly personalized. However, across domains, some common themes and prototypical emotions emerge. A consensus of data from individuals in business, law enforcement, theater, and sports suggests that the antecedent qualities preceding a peak performance include feelings of competence, focus, happiness, and personal efficacy (Hays & Brown, 2004). Instances of mastery performance also are accompanied by individuals having specific and targeted goals that provide a sense of purpose, which is then reinforced by a coach or advisor that guides the peak performer to achieve his or her personal best (Hays, 2002). Surprisingly, prior to executing a memorable performance, individuals report experiencing at least some instances of anxiety and stress, with the most successful individuals using the stress as a means to energize their performance and focus ensuing effort. Despite the subjective and individualized nature of peak performance, one conclusion is indisputable: When lacking command of one’s emotional self, the probability of optimal performance becomes a rare and elusive reality.

Chapter summary/conclusions

Emotion is a highly personalized and subjective response that develops when individuals interact with environmental stimuli. Interaction generates distinctive feelings (sometimes called affect) about an event, which are broadly influenced by personal or virtual experience, culture, and beliefs. A wide degree of response appraisal exists within and between individuals, suggesting that predicting emotional responses is tenuous at best. Two individuals can have entirely different reactions to the same event, and one individual can display the same emotion while appraising a radically different environmental stimulus.

Despite the variability in responses, three factors concerning emotions are reliable and oddly consistent. First, all emotions trigger bodily and nonverbal changes in an individual. Second, the repression of emotions is a neurological impossibility, suggesting that we are unable to mask or hide our true emotions. Third, displays of anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise are fairly consistent across cultures. How we react to an emotional event is a function of what we know and how we already feel and is based, in part, upon which environmental factors we believe are salient when pursing our personal goals. Emotional displays will vary in potency or intensity, and some emotions will often be durable and demonstrated with greater frequency. Prototypical behaviors accompany many emotions, such as the glaring eyes and crimson coloration of the exasperated teacher struggling to teach uncooperative learners. However, many times, the source and reason for the emotion can be rather subtle due to the innate and automatic nature of many emotional appraisals and their ensuing responses.

The avoidance motives of anxiety and boredom are particularly relevant for educators due to their pervasive negative impact on learning and performance. Anxiety shifts attention away from learning and redirects precious cognitive resources toward anxiety resolution. Boredom prompts disengagement as well, with a disproportionate impact on low-achieving learners, and is contributory to achieving less and exerting diminished task effort. While avoidance motives are amenable to intervention through the creation of safe, robust, and authentic learning contexts, MDs may find the cultivation of positive affect preferable to mediation of negative affect. Positive affect, SWB, and happiness not only are positively related to improved health and longevity but also influence the receptivity and willingness of learners to seek intellectual challenges and develop a greater repertoire of effective emotion-coping strategies. Individuals with an optimistic outlook surpass their pessimistic peers when it comes to job performance, skill evaluation, and eventual earnings.

The negative consequences of some emotions can be influenced by emotional restructuring and by the regulation of one’s emotions. Through the use of overlearned automatic responses and conscious problem-solving volitional strategies, individuals can convert obstacles into opportunities, exert control over seemingly uncontrollable events, and take deliberate action to overcome negative emotions that can inhibit peak performance. Emotional regulation can be taught through specific routines and rituals, and through the structuring of an autonomy-supportive learning and performance environment. Regulation of negative affect is one crucial step in cultivating peak performance, which results, in part, when individuals believe they have both the requisite skill and unabated control to reach their desired performance goals.

Next steps

Regulation of the self, and particularly one’s emotions, is just one of the many aspects of human performance where individuals exercise control. This chapter focused almost exclusively on those strategies deemed effective in managing emotion. In addition, individuals have at least two other regulatory challenges that can enhance preferred learning and performance outcomes. Individuals can regulate both cognition and motivation through the ongoing evaluation, monitoring, and reflection upon the potency and direction of their efforts. Next, we build upon the foundation of emotional regulation and provide an in-depth discussion of why systemic self-regulation is a necessary and attainable step in meeting the ongoing goal of exhibiting and cultivating optimal learning and performance. We also meet Senator Darren Soto, a master regulator, who walks the fine line between allegiance to his personal beliefs, while bridging the partisan divide to honorably represent his constituents.

End of chapter motivational minute

Principles covered in this chapter:

44. Emotional reactions are localized, subjective, and learned—responses to emotional events are based upon individual interpretations and subjective appraisals. Prototypical behaviors are observed for the emotions of anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise; however, reactions for most other emotions vary between and within persons based on the experiences, goals, and physiological profile of an individual.

45. Anxiety and boredom are performance-restricting culprits—academic emotions may negatively influence academic achievement. Anxiety, a subjectively interpreted perceived threat, has genetic and environmental roots that limit efficiency due to cognitive intrusions. Boredom also results in academic disengagement, as learners will actively avoid learning and performance contexts incommensurate with desired challenge or personal interest.

46. Positive affect is a powerful performance determinant—individuals evaluate performance contexts, making negative or positive contextual inferences. Demonstrating positive affect has broad positive implications for performance. Positive affect is related to subjective well-being and improved health. Individuals who approach performance challenges with optimism typically achieve more and feel better about themselves.

47. Individuals restructure affect to regulate their emotions—emotional regulation and restructuring occurs when individuals transform a negative instance to a positive one. Emotional regulation can happen automatically through learned experience and can also be orchestrated under defined circumstances by using specific strategies. When successfully regulating emotion, the probability of an elite performance is vastly enhanced, in part because individuals are able to effectively block out negative emotion.

Key terminology (in order of chapter presentation):

ent Affect—the subjective feelings that accompany specific emotions.

ent Emotional episode—an interaction within the person or between a person and the environment that generates subjective emotional contingencies in response to the event.

ent Somatic—physiological and neurological bodily responses resulting from an environmental catalyst.