3-212 - Understanding Teacher Emotions: Teachers’ Cognitive and Emotional Responses to Disruptive Child Behavior

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

This symposium seeks to understand teachers’ emotional experiences evoked by disruptive child behavior. Teachers often experience negative emotions in interactions with disruptive children, which influences both child and teacher wellbeing. However, empirical research on the affective-cognitive processes that may explain individual differences in teacher emotions is scarce (Chang & Davis, 2009; Spilt et al., 2011). This symposium brings together three studies investigating teachers’ cognitive and emotional responses to disruptive child behaviors and classroom events. The studies have been conducted in three different countries and vary in research methods (i.e., diaries, experience sampling, affective-priming). The 1st paper seeks to explain teachers’ emotional experiences in the context of disruptive classroom events. The results indicate that goal incongruence and coping potential are related to teachers’ negative emotions and that teachers’ use different strategies to cope with these emotions. The 2nd paper describes a diary study on the nature and intensity of teacher emotions in interactions with specific students by analyzing teacher-reported key events. The paper shows that different maladaptive child problems are related to more negative appraisals and to different emotions in teachers. The 3rd paper is guided by the hypothesis that teachers develop mental representations of their relationships with specific children that might explain cognitive, emotional, (and behavioral) responses. Using a priming design, the results suggest that teachers’ mental relationship representations can be automatically (subconsciously) activated and, once activated, have an influence on teachers’ processing of affective information. Implications for understanding teacher-child interactions, teacher wellbeing, and teacher consultation will be discussed.

Sub Unit

• Education, Schooling

Chairs

• Jantine L. Spilt, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KU Leuven

• Helma M.Y. Koomen, University of Amsterdam

Individual Presentations

• Why Do I Feel This Way? Teacher Appraisals and Emotion Regulation Strategies in Response to Student Misbehavior - Presenting Author: Mei-Lin Chang, Kennesaw State University; Jamie Lynn Taxer, Stanford University

• How do Students’ Gender and Behaviors Predict Teachers’ Appraisals and Emotions During Key Classroom Events? - Presenting Author: Janneke Annika de Ruiter, University of Amsterdam; Astrid M. G. Poorthuis, Utrecht University; Helma M.Y. Koomen, University of Amsterdam

• Towards Empirical Evidence for Teachers’ Mental Representations of Dyadic Relationships with Children: an Affective Priming Study - Presenting Author: Anne-Katrien Koenen, KU Leuven - University of Leuven; Guy Bosmans, KU Leuven; Katja Petry, KU Leuven; Karine Verschueren, University of Leuven (KU Leuven); Jantine L. Spilt, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KU Leuven