Fair mood or foul

Did you know that if you're in a rotten mood you're a less effective learner?

Obviously the opposite is true too.

When you think about it, it's fairly reasonable. You can't focus on anything, you feel irritable and upset, and the last thing on your mind is trying to retain knowledge.

But the research is there:

"Findings show that both positive and negative mood may hinder or promote information processing. In two experiments, we show that negative mood impairs transfer effects and learning."

Yes, that's just what I said in non-experimenter language.

"Additionally, mood affected performance if it was induced before the learning phase; participants in a negative mood needed more repetitions to reach the mastery level and also performed worse in the transfer tasks, although there were no greater mood differences in this problem-solving phase."

In normal words, people took longer to get good at something if they were feeling bad about anything.

Common sense.

When you have a bad experience while learning it can affect your performance so try to keep everyone happy. It's an easy way to boost performance.

The research came from 'How do we learn in a negative mood? Effects of a negative mood on transfer and learning,' found in the Journal of Learning and Instruction, Vol 17 no 1, February 2007