Is teacher happiness contagious? A study of the link between perceptions of language teacher happiness and student attitudes

There remains a dearth of research on the effects of student perception of teacher happiness and the ramifications of those perceptions on student feelings and attitudes. Using an online questionnaire, data were collected from 129 adult students of ESL/EFL across the world who were enrolled in formal English classes of intermediate to advanced level proficiency. Participants were asked about their perception of various aspects of their teachers’ happiness, and about their own attitudes and motivation to learn English. Statistical analyses revealed that student perception of teacher happiness was significantly (and positively) linked with students’ Overall attitude and motivation, as well as students’ Attitude towards the teacher. This is interpreted as an illustration of the process of positive emotional contagion between teachers and students. Pedagogical implications of the results are discussed

Children’s and Adolescents’ Conceptions of Happiness

Previous research on children's and adolescents' happiness has mainly focused on the different variables that may contribute to it. However, very few studies have investigated the beliefs that children and adolescents hold about happiness. It is important to study developmental differences in the conceptions of happiness as beliefs affect people's emotions and behaviors, and they may help explain how children and adolescents strive for their own (and potentially others') happiness. To that aim, we asked 162 children and adolescents to define - in their own words - what happiness meant for them. Their responses were coded according to two different systems derived from previous finding with adults and children. Overall, results showed that hedonic conceptualization of happiness were mainly present in late childhood; whereas eudaimonic conceptualizations were mainly present in adolescence

Children’s and Adolescents’ Happiness Conceptualizations at School and their Link with Autonomy, Competence, and Relatedness

Previous research on children’s and adolescents’happiness either focused on their conceptualisations or the link between self-reported happiness with different outcomes. However, very few studies have connected both approaches to better understand children’s and adolescents’ happiness. To address this gap, we used a mixed-method approach, to investigate if the conceptualizations of happiness at school of 744 British children and adolescents could signal differences in autonomy, competence, and relatedness. An initial coding of the responses showed thirteen conceptualizations (i.e., positive feelings, harmony/balance, leisure, friends, getting good grades, non-violence, moral actions, purpose, autonomy, competence, teachers, emotional support, and learning). Log-linear models showed that some of the conceptualizations differed across both age groups and gender. Latent class analysis showed that happiness conceptualizations could be classified in five different groups. Interestingly, whereas for children there were no differences; for adolescents, there were differences between classes in their levels of autonomy and relatedness. The implications of these findings for promoting students' well-being at school are discussed

Most notorious victory : man in an age of automation /

Bibliographical references included in "Notes" (p. 405-430