What is it about?
Why do some students take it easy after a good day while others push harder after a tough one? This study explores how emotions shape daily academic effort. By tracking college students’ daily experiences, the research finds that feeling proud of progress today may lead to coasting the next day. Meanwhile, negative emotions do not always hold students back—some, especially highly competitive ones, tend to put in more effort after a challenging day. Self-control also shapes how students respond to setbacks in their academic work.
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Why is it important?
Understanding how emotions influence academic motivation is important for students, educators, and policymakers who want to help people stay motivated over time. Most research compares different people, showing that those who feel more positive emotions generally put in more effort. But in reality, the motivation tips we hear—like "stay positive to work harder"—aren't about comparing one person to another. They’re about how a single person’s motivation changes from day to day. This study looks at how emotions shift within the same person from day to day and how those changes shape effort. By focusing on these daily patterns, this study challenges the idea that positive emotions always fuel motivation and instead suggests that the same person’s drive to work hard can fluctuate depending on how they feel from one day to the next.
Perspectives
I’ve always been puzzled by studies claiming that positive emotions drive people to work harder. Personally, whenever I felt proud of an accomplishment, I wasn’t suddenly filled with extra motivation—I was more likely to kick back, relax, and reward myself with a well-earned break. This contradiction made me wonder: do emotions shape motivation differently when we look at changes within a person rather than just comparing different people? That curiosity led me to this study. I hope readers find the findings just as surprising as I did and maybe even recognize their own patterns—whether they’re the type to coast after a win or push harder after a tough day.
Eunjin Seo
The University of Texas at Austin
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Feeling proud today may lead people to coast tomorrow: Daily intraindividual associations between emotion and effort in academic goal striving., Emotion, June 2021, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/emo0000752.
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