academic performance and negative emotions: a systematic review of literature

In recent years, several studies have been conducted in order to analyze the influence of emotions on cognitive functioning; in this regard, specific interest was dedicated to the influence of emotions on academic performance, in adolescents and young adults, with contradictory results in children. In order to systematize the evidence on younger samples, the current article aims to review the most recent contributions on this topic by focusing the attention on the relationship between negative emotions and mathematical academic performance, in samples of primary school students. Studies were selected by querying the Scopus database. Twenty-one studies, published from 2013 onwards, met the a priori inclusion and exclusion criteria and were included in the review. The results of cross-sectional studies show a negative association between emotions and performance already in primary school, mainly in the last grade, also involving individual characteristics; longitudinal works, in addition, analyze the effects of reciprocal relationships between the constructs.