Social and emotional skills such as these can play a big role in the development of thinking and learning, activities that have often been considered to be solely cognitive. Brain studies have shown that memory is coded to specific social and emotional situations. Consider the following situations in which there is real or imagined threat, heightened anxiety associated with some event, or strong feelings of anger or sadness. Think about how effective you were at those times, or whether you could even figure out the problem. It's not uncommon to find a reduction in our task focus and less flexibility in our problem solving.
Students bring similar experiences to class.
Imagine sitting in class just having learned that your girlfriend is breaking up with you and the teacher keeps asking about your homework and why it isn't complete. It might be tough to keep control. In other words, the rational mind is swamped by the emotional. Carrying out thoughtful, efficient problem solving and decision making under stress requires a high level of social and emotional skill. Much of this is due to a lack of integration of cognitive and affective skills.