Negative Affect/

Self-esteem• A project by Ryan McQueen, Daniel Shelton, and Mason Grine

Definitions

• Negative affect: a personality variable that involves the experience of negative

emotions and poor self-concept.

• Self-Esteem: reflect a person's overall emotional evaluation of his or her own

worth. It is a judgment of oneself as well as an attitude toward the self.

Affect/Esteem and Education

• Affect, behavior, and cognitive factors.

• Are these three factors present in education?

• Does a teacher deal with any of these in a day?

Research

• Negative Affect Syndrome (NAS): a state of

psychological difficulty suffering

characterized by the preponderance of

negative moods and emotions that impair

adaptive functioning and well-being.

• ROSENBERG SELF-ESTEEM SCALE

Circumplex Model of Affect

Connection to Classroom Management

• Negative outlook, distress, anxiety, dissatisfaction.

• Negative affectivity subsumes a variety of negative emotions, including anger,

contempt, disgust, guilt, and fear.

Identifying Students

• Some traits of negative affect/ low self-esteem:

• Perfectionism

• Resignation to failure

• Defensive when asked for input

• Poor communication skills

• Verses amotivation

• Low self-esteem

• Autonomy—Responsibility

• Relatedness—Relationships

• Competence—Belonging

Motivation

• Optimally challenging

tasks

• Self-determination

• Meeting psychological

needs (autonomy,

relatedness, and

competence)

Motivation Continued

• Setting goals and

benchmarks

• Track growth that students

can see

• Curbing “catastrophic

thinking”

What can teachers do?

• Making positive phone calls

• Turning mistakes into

learning opportunities

More Strategies for Teachers

1. Identify triggers for negative affect and the responses and train the individual

to respond in the opposite manner. Thus, if a stimuli triggers anxiety, train them

in relaxation. If a situation triggers depressive shutdown, train them in

behavioral activation.

2. Address avoidance via exposure; the way new learning emerges is via contact

with the feared stimuli that produces a more adaptive and habituated response.

Thus, if an individual is afraid of a bridge, they need to experience being on a

bridge in a way that fosters mastery rather than panic. This is true of internal

stimuli as well, which bridges much behavioral and psychodynamic work.

3. Identify beliefs that over-exaggerate future threat.

Strategies for Teachers

pg. 224, Teaching Students

Collaboration

• Work together with the community! Is the

student involved in a club at school? Does

the student attend the Boys and Girls Club?

Does the student attend a local church? How

is the student’s home life?

BIBLIOGRAPHYHTTP://WWW.PSYCHOLOGYTODAY.COM/BLOG/THEORY-KNOWLEDGE/201308/NEGATIVE-AFFECT-SYNDROMEHTTP://SPL.STANFORD.EDU/PDFS/2010%20RAY%20EMOTION.PDF

Witter, M. (2013). I Can Climb the Mountain.

Educational Leadership, 71(1), 61-64.

McLeod, S. A. (2012). Low Self Esteem.

Retrieved from

http://www.simplypsychology.org/self-

esteem.html

HTTP://WWW.FETZER.ORG/SITES/DEFAULT/FILES/IMAGES/STORIES/PDF/SELFMEASURES/SELF_MEASURES_FOR_SELF-ESTEEM_ROSENBERG_SELF-ESTEEM.PDF