The emotional geographies of neoliberal school reforms: Spaces of refuge and containment

This paper draws from a larger research project about the post high school transitions of young people who were at school during New Zealand’s neoliberal reforms. Our participants included a group of four young men excluded from school and redirected to an Alternative Education programme. Their accounts of their experiences at school differed starkly from what they said about their Alternative Education programme. The emotional content of their accounts reveals how the social and material practices of these respective education sites are constituted differently. Alternative Education operated as a space of refuge from alienation experienced in mainstream schooling as well as a site of containment, separating Alternative Education students from their mainstream peers. Focusing on the emotional geography of one Alternative Education programme offers insight into the emotional geographies of mainstream schooling and, more broadly, of neoliberal education reforms. Drawing on ideas from Massey and Bondi, we demonstrate how alienation is produced and manifested on different scales: teacher–student interactions, school exclusions and policies establishing Alternative Education. The Alternative Education programme discussed here provides a barometer of the broader emotional geographies of New Zealand’s neoliberal education reforms.     

Investigating the emotional geographies of exclusion at a multicultural school

This article highlights the idea that educators need to look more carefully at how school practices and discourses are entangled with emotion in relation to perceptions of race and ethnicity. More specifically, the focus is on how emotional geographies are manifest in the formation and maintenance of particular racialisation and ethnicisation processes within a multicultural primary school in the Republic of Cyprus. The uniqueness of this school is that both Greek-Cypriot students and teachers (the majority) and Turkish-speaking students (the minority) are enrolled; this interaction takes place in the background of the long-standing political and ethnic conflict between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. The central argument is that the emotional geographies of exclusion can be understood as manifestations of the racialisation and ethnicisation processes in schools—a finding that has important implications for how to understand the insidious power and tenacity in certain manifestations of these processes.     

Positive affective tone and team performance: The moderating role of collective emotional skills

Research on affect as a group-level phenomenon has shown that over time, individual members within a group become highly similar in their affect (i.e., members experience and display similar emotions and moods), and often become similar enough that the aggregation of individuals’ affect can meaningfully represent the “affective tone” of the group. It is generally assumed that a more positive affective tone will lead to better team performance. We challenge the conclusion that positive affective tone is always good for team performance, suggesting that the relationship between positive affective tone and team performance is subject to moderating influences. Across two studies, we demonstrate that the self-reported collective emotional skills of team members play a crucial role in determining whether positive affective tone is beneficial or detrimental to team performance. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

Learning to feel at home. Governing homelessness and the politics of affect

The emotional and affective dynamics of homelessness are an established matter of concern in geographical research. Geographers have called attention to homelessness as an embodied phenomenon and to the emotional distress that affects people experiencing homelessness. What has achieved less attention though are the politics of affect that characterize spaces of care. Attempts to make homeless people ‘housing ready’ often target emotions and try to provide clients with a sense of belonging and feelings of responsibility in matters of housekeeping and homemaking. The paper takes these attempts to create emotionally stable ‘housing ready’ selves as a point of departure to open a set of broader questions concerning the nature of encounters between the welfare state and its citizens. It shows how spaces of care address ‘housing readiness’ as a personal ability and thereby abstract from the complex affective entanglements and prepersonal conditions that characterize dwelling. To highlight the paradoxical effects of therapeutic approaches to dwelling as a subjective emotional skill that can be mastered, I contrast the notion of ‘housing readiness’ with recent work in the field of affective geographies that allows for a different articulation of dwelling as a dense web of practices, atmospheres and relations between people, spaces and things.     

Spatialising skin: Pushing the boundaries of trauma geographies

By focusing on the somatic qualities of trauma this paper addresses emotion and affect as a means to link together trauma's spatial, physical, subconscious and psychosocial dimensions. Its aim is to extend theoretical discussion on spatially located affectual moments of trauma by utilising the concept of skin. Skin is used here as a metaphorical and theoretical framework for examining ideas of boundaries and containment. A container is a deceptively simple idea but requires constant maintenance. Trauma, however, often threatens to spill over the boundaries of containers exposing the fluidity of boundaries both theoretical and material. Close attention is paid to the psychoanalytic idea of skin to extrapolate how trauma draws in ideas of surfaces and abjection. In some ways abjection exposes the fragility of borders, how they can be threatened from both without and within. When working across the skin, an examination of what bodies do in both the post-disaster environment (Christchurch) and in relocated spaces (Waikato) is undertaken to illuminate the theoretical premises of this work. People move toward others in order to share their experiences, thus, trauma is encountered as both: individual and social, interior and exterior, incorporating body and psyche rather than separating the terms.     

学习不良儿童元记忆监测特点的研究

采用2×3×3的混合设计,对小学四~六年级61名学习不良儿童在固定学习时间和对项目逐项评定的学习条件下,元记忆监测特点进行了实验研究.结果表明:从元记忆判断等级差异来看,学习不良儿童在难度判断和知晓感判断上与对照组儿童无显著差异,但在学习判断上显著低于对照组儿童;从元记忆监测的准确性看,学习不良儿童元记忆监测水平与对照组儿童的差异主要表现为在个体身上发展较晚的前瞻式记忆监测上.     

Emotions running high: Examining the effects of supervisor and subordinate emotional stability on emotional exhaustion

We sought to better understand the impact of leader emotional stability on follower burnout. Drawing on conservation of resources theory, we examined the emotional exhaustion consequences of supervisor-subordinate emotional stability congruence. Study 1 consisted of 299 light construction and maintenance workers and their supervisors. Study 2 was comprised of 294 workers at a city permits office and their supervisors. As hypothesized, both samples revealed that the highest levels of subordinate emotional exhaustion occurred when both supervisor and subordinate emotional stability were low. Our polynomial regression results suggest that the effects of leader and follower emotional stability are not simply a matter of similarity; subordinates low in emotional stability are disproportionately and negatively impacted by a low-emotional stability leader.     

监狱男性警察情绪智力对情绪劳动的影响分析

为了解广州市监狱基层警察的情绪劳动与情绪智力的关系,采用随机抽样法对100名监狱基层警察进行问卷调查。结果表明:①情绪劳动与情绪智力呈正相关关系,相关系数为0.628(P0.01)②情绪智力对深层表现的正效应大于对表层表现和自然表现的正效应,说明情绪智力在促进深层行动方面具有更重要的作用。③在情绪劳动中,深层表现需要较高的情绪智力,而自然表现需要较低的情绪智力。结论:监狱基层警察的情绪劳动是中等水平,情绪智力水平是中等偏上,并且两者呈显著性正相关。因此,提高监狱警察的情绪智力水平,优化情绪劳动表现策略的运用,从而促进罪犯监管工作和教育改造工作顺利进行。     

Overseas Filipino workers and the COVID-19 pandemic: Exploring the emotional labor of persistence

Without a doubt, the precarity of an overseas Filipino worker's (OFW) life is augmented by the COVID-19 pandemic, primarily through the economic and political consequences that such public health crises engender. However, while primarily seen in terms of their economic and political dimensions, these consequences also affectively disrupt the life of OFWs. In this paper, I trace the various conflicting ways that OFWs, who were terminated from their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic, have dealt with their emotions while still in their respective host countries, and, trying to find a way to return home. Drawing from Arlie Hochschild (1983) concept of emotional labor, I argue that the OFWs perform what I am provisionally calling the emotional labor of persistence. This type of emotion work, though tied to, and enabled by the precarious conditions in which the respondents live, is a resistive and agential kind of emotional labor. It allows the OFWs to endure precarity, and in the process, find ways to elude, confront, or question the modes of thinking and feeling in which they are constantly circumscribed by the demands of their overseas work and overall precarious situation.     

On the dynamics of implicit emotion regulation: Counter-regulation after remembering events of high but not of low emotional intensity

Valence biases in attention allocation were assessed after remembering positive or negative personal events that were either still emotionally hot or to which the person had already adapted psychologically. Differences regarding the current state of psychological adjustment were manipulated experimentally by instructing participants to recall distant vs. recent events (Experiment 1) or affectively hot events vs. events to which the person had accommodated already (Experiment 2). Valence biases in affective processing were measured with a valence search task. Processes of emotional counter-regulation (i.e., attention allocation to stimuli of opposite valence to the emotional event) were elicited by remembering affectively hot events, whereas congruency effects (i.e., attention allocation to stimuli of the same valence as the emotional event) were obtained for events for which a final appraisal had already been established. The results of our study help to resolve conflicting findings from the literature regarding congruent vs. incongruent effects of remembering emotional events on affective processing. We discuss implications of our findings for the conception of emotions and for the dynamics of emotion regulation processes.     

The emotional and reconstructive determinants of emotional memories: An experimental approach to flashbulb memory investigation

Flashbulb memories (FBMs) are vivid and detailed memories of the reception context of a public emotional event. Brown and Kulik (1977) introduced the label FBM to suggest the idea that individuals are able to preserve knowledge of an event in an indiscriminate way, in analogy with a photograph that preserves all details of a scene. Research work on FBMs has primarily been conducted using a naturalistic approach in order to explore the role of the emotional and reconstructive factors on FBM formation and maintenance. Nevertheless, these studies lack a sufficient control on the factors that might intervene in the process of FBM formation. The contribution of the present studies is addressed to experimentally investigating the role of emotional and reconstructive factors on emotionally charged memories, specifically on FBMs. Paralleling FBM findings, the two studies revealed that simply being in an emotional state allows people to remember all available information, such as irrelevant and unrelated details. Furthermore, the resulting memories are affected by reconstructive processes so that they are not as accurate as their richness of details would suggest.     

Dealing constructively with negatively evaluated emotional situations: the key to understanding the different reactions of teachers with high and low levels of emotional intelligence

Recent work on the distinctive features of emotions appraised as either negative or positive has links to the investigation of differences in levels of emotional intelligence. In a study with experienced teachers as participants, it was found that emotional reactions to positive or negative situations was moderated by level of emotional intelligence. The reactions to positively charged emotional situations involving students and peers were similar for teachers with high and low levels of emotional intelligence, although the low level group showed somewhat lower likelihood of making an “emotionally intelligent” response compared to the high level group. A much sharper contrast in response likelihood was found for negatively charged emotional situations involving students and peers. Teachers with high levels of emotional intelligence responded quite differently to those with low levels of emotional intelligence. The results indicate the prospect of clarifying a neglected area of exploration of differences in the likely behaviour of teachers differing in levels of emotional intelligence.     

Measuring emotional management abilities: Further evidence of the importance to distinguish between typical and maximum performance

Freudenthaler and Neubauer (2005) have recently developed and validated performance measures of emotional management abilities (EMA), requiring subjects to indicate their typical behaviour in emotional situations (typical-performance instruction, TP) instead of assessing the effectiveness of different behavioural alternatives or indicating the most adequate response (maximum-performance instruction, MP). In the present study (n = 176), we examined the effects of these two instruction forms (TP vs. MP) on the EMA-scores in a between-subject design. In addition, the relations of typical and maximum EMA to cognitive intelligence components and personality traits were tested. Instruction-related comparisons of the EMA-scores yielded not only lower means but also higher standard deviations and higher reliabilities in the TP-condition. As expected, maximum EMA were significantly correlated with cognitive intelligence components but not with personality traits. In contrast, the typical EMA were moderately associated with personality traits but not related to cognitive abilities, providing further evidence of the importance to distinguish between typical and maximum performance.     

The global non-entropic arrow of time: from global geometrical asymmetry to local energy flow

Since the nineteenth century, the problem of the arrow of time has been traditionally analyzed in terms of entropy by relating the direction past-to-future to the gradient of the entropy function of the universe. In this paper, we reject this traditional perspective and argue for a global and non-entropic approach to the problem, according to which the arrow of time can be defined in terms of the geometrical properties of spacetime. In particular, we show how the global non-entropic arrow can be transferred to the local level, where it takes the form of a non-spacelike local energy flow that provides the criterion for breaking the symmetry resulting from time-reversal invariant local laws.     

Revisiting the predictive validity of emotional intelligence: self-report versus ability-based measures

In response to general press assertions that training emotionally intelligent children will lead to great rewards, this study examined the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and academic achievement in college students, using both self-report and ability-based measures of EI. Specifically, the Mayer, Salovey, Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT, an ability-based measure) and the Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i, a self-report measure) were used to predict academic achievement. Achievement was operationalized as the respondents’ cumulative GPA. Results indicated that EI is not a strong predictor of academic achievement regardless of the type of instrument used to measure it. However, a construct validity examination revealed that the MSCEIT correlated highly with indices of cognitive ability but minimally with personality dimensions. In contrast, the EQ-i failed to correlate with indices of cognitive ability but correlated substantially with numerous personality dimensions.     

Mapping the protective pathway of emotional intelligence in youth: From social cognition to smoking intentions

The purpose of this study was to test perceptions of the social consequences of smoking as a mediator of the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and intentions to smoke cigarettes among youth. Upper elementary school students (N = 255, M_age = 10.9 years, 49% male) completed measures of EI, verbal intelligence, smoking-related intentions, past behavior, and perceived social consequences. Mediation was tested using the Sobel test. Perceived social consequences was a marginally significant mediator of the impact of total EI on intentions to smoke (Z = 1.91, p = .057). Follow-up analyses showed that perceived social consequences significantly mediated the effect of 2 EI abilities on smoking intentions: using emotions (Z = 2.02, p = .043) and managing emotions (Z = 2.28, p = .023). The results indicate that the role of higher EI in deterring smoking among youth may be related to social processing ability (i.e., greater perceptions of the negative social consequences of smoking). These findings contribute to a growing body of research demonstrating that EI may reduce cigarette smoking among youth by influencing their social perceptions.     

Jumping to interpretations: social anxiety disorder and the identification of emotional facial expressions

A small body of research suggests that socially anxious individuals show biases in interpreting the facial expressions of others. The current study included a clinically anxious sample in a speeded emotional card-sorting task in two conditions (baseline and threat) to investigate several hypothesized biases in interpretation. Following the threat manipulation, participants with generalized social anxiety disorders (GSADs) sorted angry cards with greater accuracy, but also evidenced a greater rate of neutral cards misclassified as angry, as compared to nonanxious controls. The controls showed the opposite pattern, sorting neutral cards with greater accuracy but also misclassifying a greater proportion of angry cards as neutral, as compared to GSADs. These effects were accounted for primarily by low-intensity angry cards. Results are consistent with previous studies showing a negative interpretive bias, and can be applied to the improvement of clinical interventions.     

The mediating role of affective commitment in the relation of the feedback environment to work outcomes

The Feedback Environment, as opposed to the formal performance appraisal process, is comprised of the daily interactions between members of an organization (Steelman, Levy, & Snell, in press). Relations between the feedback environment and work outcome variables such as Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) were examined through the mediating effects of affective commitment. Results indicate that affective commitment mediates the relation between the feedback environment and organizational citizenship behavior, and this mediated relation is stronger for OCBs directed at individuals than directed at the organization as a whole. Conclusions and implications are discussed.     

Duration perception of emotional stimuli: Using evaluative conditioning to avoid sensory confounds

It has been found that emotional pictures are estimated to last longer than neutral ones. However, emotional and neutral stimuli often differ in their physical characteristics, too. Since this might also affect time perception, we present a method disentangling a possible confounding regarding the processing of physically different stimulus material. In the evaluative condition paradigm, participants, at first, learnt the association of neutral images with a certain Landolt ring and of emotional images with another Landolt ring with a different gap position. The conditioned Landolt rings were subsequently used in a temporal bisection task. In two experiments, the results revealed a temporal overestimation of Landolt rings conditioned with emotional pictures compared to neutral pictures showing that the temporal overestimation of emotional stimuli cannot be attributed to perceptual differences between neutral and emotional stimuli. The method provides the potential for investigating emotional effects on various perceptual processes.     

An emotional processing writing intervention and heart rate variability: the role of emotional approach

Expressing and understanding one's own emotional responses to negative events, particularly those that challenge the attainment of important life goals, is thought to confer physiological benefit. Individual preferences and/or abilities in approaching emotions might condition the efficacy of interventions designed to encourage written emotional processing (EP). This study examines the physiological impact (as indexed by heart rate variability (HRV)) of an emotional processing writing (EPW) task as well as the moderating influence of a dispositional preference for coping through emotional approach (EP and emotional expression (EE)), in response to a laboratory stress task designed to challenge an important life goal. Participants (n?=?98) were randomly assigned to either EPW or fact control writing (FCW) following the stress task. Regression analyses revealed a significant dispositional EP by condition interaction, such that high EP participants in the EPW condition demonstrated higher HRV after writing compared to low EP participants. No significant main effects of condition or EE coping were observed. These findings suggest that EPW interventions may be best suited for those with preference or ability to process emotions related to a stressor or might require adaptation for those who less often cope through emotional approach.