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How do anger, fear, and surprise affect learning?

What is the position of emotion in literacy? “Emotional” is usually not a nice word to

describe a person or an article, which implies a fuss maker or a lack of reason without

wisdom. Countless emotion-related books on publish are discussing how to regulate emotion

(e.g., Ellis, 1988; Golden, 2016; Winch, 2014), such as preventing anger and anxiety from

interfering with people’s life. Emotions seem to be merely interference with cognition. I

personally also used to have such a negative impression on emotion. However, my

experience in the undergraduate debate team has taught me a lesson: emotion can be a

weapon – deliberately keeping the debaters angry, for example, allows them to stick to their

stance no matter what questions they will hear during a debate competition; deliberately

provoking fear or surprise in the audience can draw their attention or lead them to change

their minds. Debate is essentially one type of persuasion. These experiences, as well as many

studies in social psychology (Petty & Briñol, 2014; Walter et al., 2018) were suggesting that

anger, fear, and surprise can play positive roles in persuasion. Now it has been three years

since I learned the value of emotion. I did not realize its importance until I accidentally read

pedagogy of discomfort (Boler & Zembylas, 2003) and rediscovered my experience in

education, which gradually traced my attention to emotion back to that debate era, and further

revealed how emotion permeated every aspect of individual academic and daily life,

including literacy. This trajectory led my inquiry questions to: what if emotion can play a

positive role in learning in literacy education as well? How do anger, fear, and surprise affect

learning, and therefore, improve literacy education?

As an inquiry into the value of emotion with respect to learning and literacy education,
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this essay will explain the definitions of anger, fear, surprise and learning in the inquiry

question, discuss the possible mechanisms by which anger, fear, and surprise affect learning,

and suggest an emotion-centered pedagogy that improves learning for literacy environment.

Definitions: the complexity of emotion

Definition of emotion

Emotion, as the critical element of this exploration in literacy education, what we are

talking about when we are saying it? Emotion is a commonly used term in daily life, but what

does it mean in specific? Surprisingly, there is no scientific consensus on its definition,

though the definitions of emotion vary (Scherer, 2005) – more than one hundred definitions

and “skeptical statements” have existed according to a review in 1981 (Kleinginna &

Kleinginna, 1981). Tyng et al. (2017) synthesize these definitions, statements (e.g., mood,

feeling, affect, motivation etc.) and the results of neuroscience and propose that emotion is an

“umbrella” concept including affective, cognitive, behavioral, expressive and physiological

changes.

Classifications of emotion

Anger, fear, and surprise mentioned in the inquiry question seem to unquestionably

belong to categories of emotion, but how many types of emotions are perceivable in total?

What are the positions of these three emotions among all of them? It seems that there will be

some conclusive answers to these questions. In fact, however, there are various typologies of

emotion, such as the Ekman’s (1989) six basic emotions (i.e., anger, disgust, fear, happiness,

sadness and surprise) based on his facial-expression research, Plutchik’s (2000) “wheel of

emotion” (i.e., joy versus sadness; anger versus fear; trust versus disgust; and surprise versus
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anticipation, which suggests that primary emotion, like primary color, can be blend to form

the full spectrum of human emotional experience), Panksepp and Biven’s (2012) seven

biologically inherited primary affective systems (i.e., SEEKING, FEAR, RAGE, LUST,

CARE, PANIC/GRIEF, and PLAY), and even Cowen and Keltner’s (2017) twenty-seven

varieties of emotional experience (i.e., admiration, adoration, aesthetic appreciation,

amusement, anger, anxiety, awe, awkwardness, boredom, calmness, confusion, craving,

disgust, empathic pain, entrancement, excitement, fear, horror, interest, joy, nostalgia, relief,

romance, sadness, satisfaction, sexual desire and surprise). Anger, fear, and surprise recur as

basic emotions in these critical classifications. Therefore, these emotions are worth exploring

for the inquiry question.

After reviewing these various definitions and classifications, however, it is better to be

aware that though this essay’s inquiry question and some of these emotion classifications

seemingly based on three assumptions of different emotions:

 Emotions are universal;

 Emotions are discrete, not continuous;

 Emotions have distinguishable characteristics.

there are still ongoing debates on all of these three assumptions. For example, while there

is a recent neuroscience study (Kragel & LaBar, 2015) shows that emotions could be

discriminated with above chance accuracy based on patterns of brain activation, emotion may

be a continuous spectrum rather than a combination of discrete categories; Barret, L. F. (2017)

proposed that emotion is individual experience, and those common emotional terms such as

surprise or fear are constructed by environment (e.g., culture) – emotional vocabularies in

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different cultures might have overlaps but are far from universal. Many emotional studies are

restricted to limited cultures or languages, such as English. Therefore, before making any

assumption and definition, it is important to be clear that this essay’s inquiry question is

based on restricted culture and language, and in discussion of the discrete emotions or a

continuous emotional dimension that are characterized by following traits:

Anger. Anger is an emotional response to provocation (Videbeck, 2006). Anger is

associated with activation of the right hippocampus, the amygdala, both sides of the

prefrontal cortex and the insular cortex (Fusar-Poli et al., 2009). When experiencing anger,

the most consistently activated region of the brain is the lateral orbitofrontal cortex (Potegal

& Stemmler, 2010).

Fear. Fear is an emotional response to danger. Fear activates the bilateral amygdala, the

hypothalamus and areas of the left frontal cortex (Fusar-Poli et al., 2009). The center of most

neurobiological events associated with fear are the two amygdalae (Olsson & Phelps, 2007).

Surprise. Surprise is an emotional response to unpredictability. Surprise activates the

bilateral inferior frontal gyrus and the bilateral hippocampus (Fusar-Poli et al., 2009).

Definition of learning

Learning is a process of obtaining information (Gazzaniga et al., 1998). This definition

of learning corresponds to reading in literacy, which is a process of input. However, the

definition of learning for this inquiry question is also exhibited as a process of output: when

students are taking actions (i.e., “writing” and “rewriting”, as defined in Freire’s chapter

(1987)) after obtaining information (reading), they are showing a higher level of learning –
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according to Bloom’s taxonomy of learning (1956), in learning, applying the acquired

knowledge is beyond the level of simply remembering or understanding information.

The result of learning is memory. “Learning and memory are inextricably intertwined

because what we remember about some information is often a function of how we learned

that information in the first place” (Brown, Bransford, Ferrara, & Campione, 1983, as cited in

Byrnes, p. 43).

In addition to external factors that affect learning, such as heredity, there are more

internal factors that affect learning, including motivation, interest, attention, practice, and

emotional conditions etc. (Bhatia, 1973; Mangal, 2004). To enhance learning in literacy

education, these factors are critical aspects that can be influenced by different emotions.

Discussion: emotions are impacting what aspects of learning

Emotion and Learning

In some cases, the emotional environment in classroom can be more important than what

is taught itself in classroom. In communication, the 7-38-55 rule states that when these three

elements of the message are incongruent, 7 percent of meaning is communicated through

spoken word, 38 percent through tone of voice, and 55 percent through body language,

because the non-verbal elements, such as tone of voice and body language are clues to detect

emotions (Mehrabian, 1971). Teaching and learning are essentially one type of

communication. They are inseparable aspects of the same process happened in classroom.

Learning is defined from the perspective of students, and teaching is defined from the

perspective of teachers. Thus, knowledge of how to enhance learning in literacy education is

the basis of the discussion of how to promote teaching and how to devise a pedagogy.
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A review (Tyng et al., 2017) in neuroscience has provided biological evidence that

emotion influences learning and memory by three main brain structures: amygdala, prefrontal

cortex, and hippocampus. In terms of the three emotions, anger, fear, and surprise, how do

they affect learning in specific aspects?

Anger and learning. What can be the positive effect of anger? No one enjoys getting

along with angry people. When caught up in angry quarrels, rational people can be also

stubborn about ideas that they would otherwise have doubted. This is because people in anger

are ready to respond to provocations or attacks, not allowing them have time to doubt

themselves. To put it another way, it shows that anger gives people motivation to solve

problems. One study (Lench & Levine, 2008) designed an anagram experiment where one

hundred college students were randomly assigned to two groups, both of whom were told to

solve three sets of anagrams. They can not return to skipped anagrams, and their goal is either

to attain success or to avoid failure in 25 minutes (the original purpose of the experiment is to

investigate the effects of approach goals versus avoidance goals), though their first anagram

was in fact unsolvable. The experiment measured the participants’ emotions by a scale

between each anagram and counted the time they spent on the first unsolvable anagram. The

result showed that anger made participants spend more time on unsolvable anagrams, that is,

anger enhances the persistence of people when facing learning difficulties. While extra time

spent on difficult questions in a standardized test may not necessarily lead to higher scores,

this study proves that anger can have a positive effect on the persistence of people to solve

problems.

Studies also show that anger is associated with approach motivation (Berkowitz, 1989;
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Carver & Harmon-Jones, 2009), the impulse to go toward positive stimuli, where stimuli are

external goal objects (Lang & Bradley, 2008). For example, an experiment (Aarts et al., 2010)

on facial expressions found that objects paired with angry faces potentiated approach

behavior in a reward context and avoidance behavior in a neutral context. Besides, anger can

be manifested as a subjective sense of strength and self-assurance (Novaco, 2000).

Fear and learning. Fear is usually regarded as one of the critical elements that lead to

racial discrimination and segregation (El-Haj, 2006; Orfield & Eaton, 1996). However, fear

can also be used to enhance learning. A study (Conroy & Elliot, 2004) of 356 college

students tested various dimensions of their fears of failure and their achievement goals before

and after they attended physical activity classes, and the result showed that fear of failure

could impact students’ learning goals. The fears of failures include: “(a) Fears of

Experiencing Shame and Embarrassment (‘‘When I am failing, I worry about what others

think about me’’), (b) Fears of Devaluing One’s Self-Estimate (‘‘When I am failing, I am

afraid that I might not have enough talent.’’), (c) Fears of Having an Uncertain Future

(‘‘When I am failing, it upsets my ‘plan’ for the future’’), (d) Fears of Important Others

Losing Interest (‘‘When I am not succeeding, people are less interested in me’’), and (e)

Fears of Upsetting Important Others (‘‘When I am failing, important others are

disappointed’’). Proper use of students’ fears of failure in teaching can influence their

learning goals and thus, learning actions.

It is also notable that fear is not useful to motivate action unless it is matched with an

effective action plan. A study (Witte, 1991) in AIDS prevention found that when threat of

AIDS was high and condom efficacy low, people failed to use condoms, and when both
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threat and efficacy were high, people reported more condom use. That is, fear can motivate

behavior change, as long as the recommended action plan is portrayed as effective.

Surprise and learning. While anger is associated with confidence, surprise is associated

with doubt (Petty & Briñol, 2014). In other words, surprise represents a formation of

uncertainty about new information, which is the perfect time for learning to begin – surprise,

is considered one type of “knowledge emotion”, which can lead to confusion and interest

(Silvia, 2009), because surprise makes people aware of their ignorance (Gross, 2010). In

other words, surprise motivates people to learn by reminding their ignorance of the new

knowledge.

Surprise also has a significant impact on memory. The flashbulb memory, a vivid

memory for the circumstances in which “one first learned of a very surprising and

consequential event” (Brown & Kulik, 1977), is a typical manifestation of the influence of

surprise on memory.

An emotion-centered pedagogy

Literacy must be rooted in an environment. Freire (1987) compares the relationship

between the environment and literacy to world (environment) and word-world (literacy); In

the modern society, the new environment of technology and network also have given birth to

a new form of literacy, digital literacy. Literacy and environment are closely related.

Pedagogy of discomfort advocated “an emotionally open and safe environment that nurtures

emotions of anger or guilt but challenges them with compassion and courage” (Boler, &

Zembylas, 2003). However, such an environment can be hard to create. People do not like to

be in a conflict or to show anger in front of others, and they are not used to discomforts, even
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if such an environment may help them examine and reframe their former beliefs, and

therefore, learn and grow. Consequently, the question becomes, how is such an environment

created in classroom? To answer this question, this essay suggests an emotion-centered

pedagogy that incorporates emotions such as anger, fear, and surprise.

Anger, for example, enhances students’ persistence, and it can be used to encourage them

to keep exploring the possible reasons and solutions for critical issues lied in society and

history, which at least takes hours for students to understand and figure out. A recent example

is related with a class assignment, which requires reading of a particular book and present a

15-minute speech with reading groupmates. Ghost in the school yard is a book that talks

about school closures in Chicago in 2013 (Ewing, 2020). After its content intrigued anger

inside the reading group, the efforts to collaborate and present felt like nothing. Students

loved to discuss and note down what annoyed them in the event of school closures and how

this situation was influenced by racial discrimination and segregation. They even managed to

find answers to a question they raised, which has not been explained in the book itself, but in

history: why in 1919, did the first black banker in Chicago, Jesse Binga have three bombs

attack for he helped renting “too many flats to black people in high-class residence districts”,

and was no one arrested by the police? They felt angry and therefore, kept searching an

answer. Finally, they found in Kerner report (1968) that in the parallel year, the Ku Klux

Klan was flourishing again, and its members have reached a crazy number of four million

people, and they were responsible for the Chicago 1919 riot, when 58 black people’s houses

were bombed. That was not an extremely difficult process, however, without anger, they

would never have had the energy and persistence to learn more aspects of that history
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spontaneously, because the knowledge was outside of what they were supposed to know in

the course. It is suggested that the choice of class materials related with racial topics in

literacy education may incorporate contents that directly trigger emotions such as anger.

Use of fear of failure, can be an opportunity to help students understand other cultures or

races. When talking about a different culture, students are more cautious as they do not want

to upset classmates from the same culture (the fifth types of fears of failures, i.e., “When I am

failing, important others are disappointed’’). A pedagogy using this fear may help students

learn more about others’ culture before speaking.

Surprise comes in an open environment that encourages subtle conversations. In the

fieldwork with a student, Emily, I found the importance of talking about unexpected things

when teaching. Emily described herself as introverted, and she seldom spoke when we were

together. If I attempted to ask her any open-ended question, she simply answered yes or good,

which made me feel frustrated, thinking that she did not trust me. Until a period when I was

eager to learn her stories, because “anyone who has lived has stories to tell” (Christiansen,

2009), and I needed to hear at least something for the fieldwork assignment and looked at

some of her assessment materials in school. She said yes but seemed reluctant to handle them

to me, and I could not wait no more. I decided to tell her directly that I was struggling with

my school assignment deadline. Surprisingly, she smiled. She seemed surprised as well, but

she gave me everything soon, started to tell me her personal feelings of her school

assignments, and even asked many questions about my life. I realized that she was, and she

had been actually interested, and the “anyone” in that quote “anyone who has lived has

stories to tell” (Christiansen, 2009) in fact included me. Before students decide to tell me
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their stories, I can tell my story to them, even though the story may seem “embarrassing” –

but that is what makes that moment a surprise – and a beginning of trust and learning. For

sensitive students or those who can not immediately trust the teacher that they are talking

with, introducing surprising conversations and stories can be an opportunity to start an open

conversation.

Summary

This essay discusses the controversial definitions and the assumptions that form the

inquiry question, and defines emotion, anger, fear, surprise, learning from a neuroscience

perspective; it also explores the biological basis of the influence of emotion on learning and

memory, as well as the evidence of anger, fear, and surprise can affect what aspects of

learning and memory: anger improves persistence of people when they are facing difficulties

in learning; fear of failure, combined with an effective action plan, influences people’s

learning goals and motivates people to take action (a higher level of learning); surprise,

makes people aware of their ignorance and be interested in new knowledge. Finally, this

essay argued the importance of an emotionally open and safe environment that allows

different negative emotions of challenging oneself to literacy, proposes an emotion-centered

pedagogy (i.e., use of the positive effect of emotions), and gives suggestions of how to apply

the relationship with emotion and learning to literacy education.

It is also notable for further studies that anger, fear, and surprise, however, are not the

limited genres of the emotion-centered pedagogy. This essay chose to discuss them simply as

the most common emotions in different classifications of emotion. The impacts of emotions

such as SEEKING as in the classification of Panksepp and Biven (2012) on learning are very
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worth exploring. Questions also can be raised from this essay’s discussion itself – what are

the circumstances that these emotions can have negative impacts on learning? What are the

differences between emotion-centered pedagogy and the traditional emotional literacy

programs? How is the emotion-centered pedagogy applied to literacy education in different

contexts?
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