Consciously Exhibiting an Unfelt Emotion: The Case of Teacher Enthusiasm

• Applicant: Dr. Jamie Taxer
• Subject Area: Developmental and Educational Psychology ; Social Psychology, Industrial and Organisational Psychology
• Term: from 2015 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 282495967

There is a common belief that enthusiastic teachers enrich students' achievement and motivation. Due to this belief teachers are often encouraged to display enthusiastic behaviors regardless of their current experienced emotions. In the proposed research project I would like to examine the cost consciously exhibiting enthusiasm in the absence of experienced enjoyment has on teachers and students. The central research questions are: Is there a detrimental effect of consciously exhibiting unfelt enthusiasm? Can students differentiate between authentic and inauthentic displays of enthusiasm? Do students equally benefit from being taught by a teacher who expresses authentic versus inauthentic enthusiasm? These questions will be explored in collaboration with Prof. Dr. James Gross (Stanford University), an expert in emotions and emotion regulation. The proposed project consists of three experiments in which the research questions will be experimentally investigated using multiple assessment methods (e.g., self-report measures, physiological measures, and facial expressive behavior measures). If it is possible to understand the causal effects consciously exhibiting an unfelt emotion has on teachers and students, one could derive important implications for teachers, teacher education programs, educational psychology, and research on emotion regulation.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: USA
• Host: Professor Dr. James J. Gross, Ph.D.