Some years ago, I wrote a post about a review by Hawthorne and colleagues that led to an interesting hypothesis: well-being might help learning by reducing cognitive load. The idea is intuitively appealing. When students feel bad, are stressed, or have something on their mind, stress will take a part of their mental capacity. This fits with work such as that of Mullainathan and Shafir on scarcity. If some of your mental energy is spent worrying about problems, there is simply less left for the learning task itself. Conversely, a more positive emotional state might place less strain on working memory, thereby making learning easier. But is this really the case?

A study in Learning and Individual Differences, conducted by some of the same researchers, investigated this mechanism in students learning algebra. The researchers asked more than three hundred secondary school students to watch a short series of instructional videos on algebraic equations. Before and during the task, the researchers measured students’ feelings and the cognitive load they experienced. Afterwards, the students completed a test to measure what they had learned.

The results are interesting, but also somewhat more complex than the claim suggested by the earlier review.

First, the part that will not surprise many people. Students who experienced more so-called “painful emotions”, such as sadness, shame, or fear, reported higher levels of extraneous cognitive load. In other words, factors unrelated to the learning task placed a heavier burden on their working memory. This additional cognitive demand was associated with lower learning outcomes. That fits well with what we already know from research on anxiety, stress, and mathematics anxiety. When worries or negative emotions occupy part of your mental energy, less capacity remains for solving the problem at hand.

But something more surprising happens with positive emotions. Students who felt more positive did learn more. However, that effect did not seem to operate through lower cognitive load. The study found no evidence that positive emotions reduce extraneous cognitive load.

This suggests that positive emotions probably work through a different mechanism. The authors mention possibilities such as motivation, perseverance, or mental effort. Students who feel better may simply be more willing to invest effort, persist when something becomes difficult, or stay focused on the task. The advantage of a positive emotional state may therefore lie not in additional cognitive capacity, but in greater engagement.

This is a small but important nuance. Some popular interpretations of cognitive load theory implicitly assume that positive emotions “free up” working memory. This study suggests a more asymmetric reality. Negative emotions can drain cognitive capacity, but positive emotions do not automatically create additional capacity. They can still support learning, but likely through a different pathway.

Personally, I do not find that particularly surprising. Working memory is inherently limited. Interference can reduce the capacity we effectively use, but expanding that capacity is much harder. Previous research has repeatedly shown how difficult it is to increase working memory capacity.

As with most studies, this one also has limitations. The researchers measured cognitive load through self-report, a method that remains debated in the cognitive load literature. The study also focuses on a single type of task at a single moment in time, so we should be cautious about strong causal conclusions. Even so, it offers an interesting attempt to connect two research traditions: cognitive load theory and research on academic emotions.

For classroom practice, the message is quite familiar. Students who are anxious, stressed, or unhappy often struggle more to focus on a complex task. That can directly undermine learning. At the same time, creating a positive classroom climate is probably beneficial, but not because it suddenly creates extra working memory. Rather, it may help because students are more motivated to engage with the learning task. Experiences of success can play an important role here as well.

Well-being, then, is not a magical button that removes cognitive load. But it can influence how much energy students are willing to invest in learning.