What does research say about emotion affecting learning behavior – Part 1

The topic sounds absurd because emotion affecting behavior is too much of a common sense to be made into the subject matter of a blog. However, ‘common sense is not so common’ – so said Voltaire. First, some fundas about affective dimensions. The word ‘affective’ means moods, feelings and attitudes.

In 1980, a research paper titled ‘A Circumplex Model of Affect’ was published by James A. Russell in a reputed journal called ‘Journal of Personality and Social Psychology’. As per http://www.personalityresearch.org, a circumplex can be viewed as implying circular order, such that variables that fall close together are more related than variables that fall further apart on the circle, with opposite variables being negatively related and variables at right angles being unrelated (orthogonal). Sounds complex – doesn’t it? In simple words, circumplex is an interpersonal circle. So, let’s now come to the point.

Psychologists describe affect as a set of dimensions such as displeasure, distress, depression, and excitement with each dimension varying independently of others. The ‘Circumplex Model of Affect’ by Russell talks about the affective dimensions being interrelated in highly systematic fashion. He represents the inter-relationships among the affective dimensions through a spatial model in which affective concepts falls in a circle in the following order: pleasure (0⁰), excitement (45⁰), arousal (90⁰), distress (135⁰), displeasure (180⁰), depression (225⁰), sleepiness (270⁰), and relaxation or contentment (315⁰) as in the following diagram.