Bonus: Want your kids to better understand the downsides of intense positive emotions? Our lab created this wonderful video for you to watch together! (Credit to Faith Toreno)

youtu.be/aHNy_uIje1M?...

Recognizing the sweet spot for cognitive performance
seems to involve two paradoxical intuitions: emotions can bolster motivation to tackle demanding tasks, but if too intense, they can also disrupt attentional focus by pulling the contents of the mind toward their source or origin.

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In their verbal responses, children and adults mention motivation at similar rates. However, with increasing age, children are more likely to reference intrusive thoughts as a source of distraction (e.g., “She will be thinking about what made her happy instead of listening to the teacher”).

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5yos think that the happier you are, the easier it will be to pay attention. In contrast, adults believe attentional performance peaks in a mildly positive mood.

With age, children become increasingly skeptical about the benefits of intense positive emotions for cognitive performance. Why?

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5yos and adults reason similarly about emotional valence: they believe paying attention is easy if you’re happy and hard if you’re sad. By age 5, they also understand that intensity matters: the sadder you are, the harder it will be to focus.

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We asked 5- to 8-year-olds and adults to predict which of two characters would be better at paying attention to a new topic (Study 1) and how easy or hard it would be to pay attention in different emotional states (Study 2).

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