Electronegativity

[Marni Kahn 1A]

What exactly is electronegativity and why does it increase across a period from left to right?

[Caitlyn Tran 2E]

Electronegativity is an element's ability to attract electrons. The reason electronegativity increases as you go across a period from left to right is because the atomic number (or number of protons in the nucleus) increases, thereby giving the element a stronger positive charge to attract negatively charged electrons.

[Shivam Rana 1D]

Electronegativity is the measure of an atoms tendency to attract an electron. Atoms at the right of the table are close to filling an octet and are therefore more electronegative.

[Daria Azizad 1K]

Electronegativity also decreases down the periodic table because as more shells are added, the more distant the positive nucleus is from other electrons it would attract; thus the electrostatic forces of attraction are weaker.

[Jorge Ramirez_4H]

Is electronegativity important when doing electron configurations?

[Ying Yan 1F]

Electronegativity is an atom's ability to hold on to an electron. Therefore, it increases across a period because the ionization energy of an atom also increases across a period, meaning the atom is able to "hold on" to its electron better.

[Ying Yan 1F]

Is electronegativity important when doing electron configurations?

Not particularly, electronegativity is important for determining the bond that will form between atoms, so for drawing lewis structures but not electron configurations.

[Nathan Rothschild_2D]

Is there a way to calculate electronegativity, like a formula, and if so do we need to know it? In order to get exact electronegativity.

[April Meza 3K]

The way to know electronegativity is through the periodic table. Electronegativity increases as you move to the right and it decreases as you go down the periodic table.

[Shimei_2F]

Electronegativity describes the likelihood of an atom to attract a shared pair of electrons towards itself. It increases from left to right because of a greater charge on the nucleus which causes the electron bonding pairs to be attracted to atoms placed further right on the periodic table.

[mayarivers3I]

Electronegativity is an atom's ability to hold on to their electrons. The way I remember that electronegativity increases across a period is that atoms in the same row have the same number of shells, but the number of valence electrons increases across the row, so the attraction between the protons and electrons across a period is much stronger than in the beginning of the period.

[Sreyes_1C]

Is electronegativity important when doing electron configurations?

for only electron configurations, it is not really useful. knowing what it is and its trend is more useful for bonds and lewis structures

[quresh3E]

Electronegativity is the ability of an atom to attract a shared pair of electrons. The electronegativity increases as it goes along a period because the atomic number increases, thus increasing the number of protons. The protons make the atom more positive, making it more attracted to electrons.

[quresh3E]

Is electronegativity important when doing electron configurations?

For electron configurations, you don't really need to know about how electronegative the atom is. It may be more beneficial to know about where it lies in the periodic table in terms of the s,p, and d blocks.

[Leila_4G]

Electronegativity also decreases down the periodic table because as more shells are added, the more distant the positive nucleus is from other electrons it would attract; thus the electrostatic forces of attraction are weaker.

This helps so much! Thank you!