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Does anxiety explain why math-anxious people underperform in math?

Richard J Daker1, Sylvia U Gattas2, Elizabeth A Necka3

  • 1Department of Psychology, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., USA. rjd107@georgetown.edu.

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Math anxiety causes underperformance, but in-the-moment anxiety only partially explains this. Individual differences in how math anxiety affects performance suggest other factors are at play.

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Area of Science:

  • Psychology
  • Cognitive Science
  • Educational Psychology

Background:

  • Math anxiety is linked to consistent underperformance in mathematical tasks.
  • The prevailing theory attributes this underperformance to heightened anxiety during math engagement.
  • This widely accepted explanation has lacked direct empirical testing.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To directly investigate the extent to which in-the-moment anxiety mediates math-anxious underperformance.
  • To explore potential alternative mechanisms contributing to underperformance in math-anxious individuals.
  • To examine individual heterogeneity in the factors underlying math anxiety's impact on performance.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized self-report measures to assess participants' anxiety levels.
  • Employed physiological indices, including heart rate variability, to objectively measure anxiety.
  • Directly correlated anxiety measures with mathematical performance in a math-anxious cohort.

Main Results:

  • In-the-moment anxiety was found to partially explain the underperformance of math-anxious individuals.
  • A subset of highly math-anxious individuals with high heart rate variability showed reduced in-the-moment anxiety but no performance improvement.
  • These findings indicate that mechanisms beyond immediate anxiety contribute to math-anxious underperformance.

Conclusions:

  • While in-the-moment anxiety plays a role, it does not fully account for math-anxious underperformance.
  • Individual differences in physiological responses (e.g., heart rate variability) highlight varied underlying mechanisms.
  • Addressing mechanistic heterogeneity is crucial for developing effective interventions to improve math performance in anxious individuals.