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Subscribe to RSSIf the prospect of calculating a tip on a dinner bill with family or friends looking on makes you panic, listen up: Your subpar knack for numbers might not always be the problem, suggests a new study. It may well be that your mind gets in the way of your true ability. Your fears of doing math in a pressure-filled situation cause you to worry and perform poorly.
The new report, published in the journal Emotion, looked at the reasons why some students succeed on a math test while others flounder. Scientists measured working memory capacity, a mental scratch pad that temporarily stores and processes information, in 73 college students with low and high levels of math anxiety. They also tested saliva for cortisol, a hormone produced in response to stress, before and after participants solved a tough series of math problems.
Researchers wanted to find out whether there was a link between math anxiety, cortisol levels and working memory.
The performance of students with a low working memory was not affected by stress hormone levels or by math anxiety. It appeared to make the most difference in participants with high working memory -- the most talented individuals.
Students who had higher working memory and were more anxious about math had higher levels of stress hormones after the test and tended to do worse on it. In contrast, those with low levels of math-anxiety and had higher memory capacity also churned out increasing amounts of cortisol during the exam but they did better on it.
"We found that mindset really matters," says Sian Beilock, an associate professor in psychology at the University of Chicago and the study's lead author. If someone is anxious about math and approaches it with dread, that person is likely to interpret the body's physiological reaction to stress -- the racing heart, sweaty palms, and butterflies in the stomach -- as a sign of failure and performs poorly, she suggests.
When worries eat up working memory and when we don't have its full capacity at our disposal, performance suffers, Beilock explains. For highly math-anxious folks, physiological signs of stress send them into a more worrisome state, which deprives people of the brain power they need to excel.
"We were surprised, however, that the same physiological response could lead to excelling on a math test for those who were not anxious about math and looked at the situation in a positive way -- as a challenge," says Beilock, the author of "Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have To."
If people who are math-anxious want to succeed under pressure, Beilock suggests students take 10 minutes to write down their worries on paper before a math test to download them from their minds so they don't pop into their heads during the exam and distract them.
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Is there such a thing that can be compared to dyslexia as it relates to reading for those of us who hate and really feel as if they are bad at math? Whenever I see all of those numbers and equations I just panic and ger more confused.
Dyscalculia is the math version of dyslexia. :)
It took me many years to understand that I am numerically dyslexic (I don't know it's correct name if it has one) often seeing numbers reversed and in the wrong order, and that is what caused my poor performance in math. It does exist though, and recognizing it is a major step in getting better at math. I just take more time to read the numbers and make sure I'm seeing them correctly, and I'm much better at math problems than I used to be.
As a teacher who taught pre-algebra to middle and lower level functioning 8th graders, I always introduced the course with a question, "How many of you hate math?" The majority would always raise their hands. Then I asked if they ever felt put down or as if they were stupid when they attempted to answer questions or solve parts of problems publicly in class. Again, most of the hands went up. I told them that I would never get upset with them for the wrong answers or for not understanding. The only thing that would "tick me off" with them, I told them, was not trying and hindering other students from focussing. I would find the math "genius" in them, and help them to love math. I stuck to it, and the vast majority of "haters" became "likers" and "lovers", and many went on to excel in higher level math in high school. Teacher attitude AND expectation along the way are also huge contributors to math anxiety.