This study focused on the use of math in everyday life (the propensity to recognize and solve quantitative issues in real life situations). Data from a Dutch nation-wide research on math among adults (N = 521) were used to investigate the question whether math anxiety and perceived math competence mediated the relationship between math skills and use of math in everyday life, taken gender diffe...

Math anxiety is a negative affective reaction to situations involving math. Previous work demonstrates that math anxiety can negatively impact math problem solving by creating performance-related worries that disrupt the working memory needed for the task at hand. By leveraging knowledge about the mechanism underlying the math anxiety-performance relationship, we tested the effectiveness of a s...

Two studies were conducted to examine gender differences in trait (habitual) versus state (momentary) mathematics anxiety in a sample of students (Study 1: N = 584; Study 2: N = 111). For trait math anxiety, the findings of both studies replicated previous research showing that female students report higher levels of anxiety than do male students. However, no gender differences were observed fo...

Given the considerable prevalence of math anxiety, it is important to identify the factors contributing to it in order to improve mathematical learning. Research on math anxiety typically focusses on the effects of more complex arithmetic skills. Recent evidence, however, suggests that deficits in basic numerical processing and spatial skills also constitute potential risk factors of math anxie...

Mathematics anxiety negatively affects performance in simple arithmetic tasks. The experiment reported here explored the role of interactivity in defusing the impact of math anxiety on mental arithmetic. Participants were invited to complete additions presented on paper without using their hands or any artefact; in a second, interactive, condition, the same problems were presented in the form o...

Children's anxiety for situations requiring mathematical problem solving, a concept referred to as math anxiety, has a unique and detrimental impact on concurrent and long-term mathematics achievement and life success. Little is known about the factors that contribute to the emergence of math anxiety. The current study builds on the hypothesis that math anxiety might reflect a maladaptive affec...

Math anxiety is a negative emotional reaction to situations involving mathematical problem solving. Math anxiety has a detrimental impact on an individual's long-term professional success, but its neurodevelopmental origins are unknown. In a functional MRI study on 7- to 9-year-old children, we showed that math anxiety was associated with hyperactivity in right amygdala regions that are importa...

The United States is currently not producing enough graduates in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields to meet the demands of a technology-dependent society. Although there are many efforts in place to improve STEM education in the United States, most notably, President Obama’s Educate to Innovate campaign, these efforts focus mostly on innovating the teaching of math content...

Attentional bias toward threatening or emotional information is considered a cognitive marker of anxiety, and it has been described in various clinical and subclinical populations. This study used an emotional Stroop task to investigate whether math anxiety is characterized by an attentional bias toward math-related words. Two previous studies failed to observe such an effect in math-anxious in...

The current study examined the relationship between math anxiety and arithmetic performance by focusing on intrusive thoughts experienced during problem solving. Participants (N = 122) performed two-digit addition problems on a verification task. Math anxiety significantly predicted response time and error rate. Further, the extent to which intrusive thoughts impeded calculation mediated the re...