Can Difficult Lectures be Interesting AND Pleasant? Hedonic and Eudaimonic Feelings as a Function of Perceived Difficulty

Abstract

What is it that makes challenge and complexity so appealing to humans? Research derived from positive psychology have tried to answer this question, and in the process found evidence suggesting that people experience different feelings as the perception of difficulty rises. In this study, using Gudrun Eckblad’s scheme theory as premise, we predicted that reported feelings of pleasure would be most intense at lower levels of difficulty, and that reported feelings of interest would be most intense at higher levels of difficulty. Predictions were also made that pleasure and difficulty would have a stronger negative correlation than interest and difficulty, and that correlations between pleasure and interest would be positive, but moderate. Using a “feelometer”, a tool for continuous measurements of feelings, quantitative data were collected across two separate psychology lectures, statistical psychology (n = 60) and community psychology (n = 38). The variables were correlated, and multilevel analysis were conducted. Results of the study found negative correlations between perceived difficulty and both interest and pleasantness. Only one of the path-analysis showed a stronger relationship between pleasure and difficulty, oppose to interest and difficulty. Positive and moderate correlations between pleasure and interest were found in some cases. Results were discussed, and supporting literature were proposed as well as limitations of the study.