We Feel, Therefore We Learn: The Relevance of Affective and Social Neuroscience to Education

Abstract

Recent advances in neuroscience are highlighting connections between emotion, social functioning, and decision making that have the potential to revolutionize our understanding of the role of affect in education. In particular, the neurobiological evidence suggests that the aspects of cognition that we recruit most heavily in schools, namely learning, attention, memory, decision making, and social functioning, are both profoundly affected by and subsumed within the processes of emotion; we call these aspects emotional thought. Moreover, the evidence from brain-damaged patients suggests the hypothesis that emotion-related processes are required for skills and knowledge to be transferred from the structured school environment to real-world decision making because they provide an emotional rudder to guide judgment and action. Taken together, the evidence we present sketches an account of the neurobiological underpinnings of morality, creativity, and culture, all topics of critical importance to education. Our hope is that a better understanding of the neurobiological relationships between these constructs will provide a new basis for innovation in the design of learning environments.

Emotional intelligence in medical education: a critical review

“…Neuroscience research has shown that knowledge and skills are more valuable when possessed by people who can apply them in emotionally sensitive ways. 71 Cognitive science has shown that emotions influence how health professional learners identify and perceive information, and interpret and act on it. 72 Achievement emotions have been shown to influence medical students' academic performance.…”

What Does Emotion Have to Do with Learning? Everything!

“…The very large overlap between the two ellipses represents the domain of emotional thought. This simplified diagram is based on the more extensive model presented in Immordino-Yang and Damasico (2007) and Immordino-Yang (2016). the cognitive skill is negative (for example, fear), then the skill will be encumbered (this is the bad news).…”

Implications of Affective and Social Neuroscience for Educational Theory

“…And in each case, these feelings interact with other thoughts to change the mind in characteristic ways, and to help people learn from their experiences. Put simply, what affective neuroscience is revealing is that the mind is influenced by an interdependency of the body and brain; both the body and brain are involved, therefore, in learning (Immordino-Yang & Damasio, 2007).…”

“…As he begins thinking through the solution, he is emotionally evaluating whether each cognitive step is likely to bring him closer to a useful solution, or whether it seems to be leading him astray. From a neuropsychological perspective, 100 Mary Helen Immordino-Yang the brain systems for emotion form the 'rudder' that steers his thinking toward the development and recruitment of an effective skill (Immordino-Yang & Damasio, 2007), in this case for the solving of physics problems.Through regulating and inciting attention (Posner & Rothbart, 2005), motivation, and evaluation of possible social and cognitive outcomes, emotion serves to facilitate the student's recruitment of brain networks that support the skills he is developing. Here we use the example of solving a hypothetical physics problem, but the same mechanisms would be at play in the solving of other sorts of problems too, such as in deciding how to help one's friend or how to vote in a presidential election.…”

“…, and underscore the importance of emotion in 'rational' learning and decision-making Haidt, 2001;Immordino-Yang & Damasio, 2007). The challenge now for educators is to reconcile the new neuroscientific findings with established educational theories, to discover how this new information can be used to improve teaching and learning.…”