Educational Leadership, the Emotions, and Neuroscience

Synonyms

Affective neuroscience; Decision-making; Educational leadership; Emotions; Folk psychology; Somatic marker hypothesis

Introduction

Discussions of the emotions have recently become prominent in educational leadership research which advocates the belief that emotions are important for leadership to be effective. A central part of this research is the common sense concept of emotion that underlies the empirical studies of emotion and leadership. This notion, however, is part of folk psychology which, as a failed empirical theory, is unable to answer some of the most fundamental questions raised in the education and leadership literature: how emotions are generated, what they are, and how they are shared between people. This entry presents an overview of why emotions are believed to be important for leadership in education, how emotions are understood in the education literature, what is known about the history of the concept of emotion, and what the neurosciences can tell us...