The Association Between Emotion Regulation, Physiological Arousal, and Performance in Math Anxiety

Abstract

Emotion regulation (ER) strategies may reduce the negative relationship between math anxiety and mathematics accuracy, but different strategies may differ in their effectiveness. We recorded electrodermal activity (EDA) to examine the effect of physiological arousal on performance during different applied ER strategies. We explored how ER strategies might affect the decreases in accuracy attributed to physiological arousal in high math anxious (HMA) individuals. Participants were instructed to use cognitive reappraisal (CR), expressive suppression (ES), or a “business as usual” strategy. During the ES condition, HMA individuals showed decreases in math accuracy associated with increased EDA, compared to low math anxious (LMA) individuals. For both HMA and LMA groups, CR reduced the association between physiological arousal and math accuracy, such that even elevated physiological arousal levels no longer had a negative association with math accuracy. These results show that CR provides a promising technique for ameliorating the negative relationship between math anxiety and math accuracy.

Math Anxiety Is Related to Math Difficulties and Composed of Emotion Regulation and Anxiety Predisposition: A Network Analysis Study

“…Math anxiety is a common phenomenon [ 1 ] characterized by negative attitudes toward math [ 2 , 3 ], as well as feelings of stress, frustration, and fear when thinking about or engaging in situations involving numerical information [ 3 , 4 , 5 ]. Researchers have reported inconsistent results for the direction of the link between math anxiety and performance, e.g., [ 6 , 7 , 8 ]. A possible explanation often cited by intervention studies suggests that emotion regulation can explain the ability of some math-anxious individuals to perform well, e.g., [ 9 , 10 , 11 ]; however, see [ 12 ].…”

“…This reciprocal relationship between math anxiety and performance may be driven by an avoidance behavior which increases emotional [ 71 , 72 ] and learning problems [ 57 , 73 , 74 ]. However, this vicious cycle can be interrupted [ 6 , 7 , 8 ], a phenomenon that may be explained by emotion-regulation processes [ 7 , 10 , 33 ]. For example, increased activation in the fronto-parietal network associated with cognitive control and emotion regulation prior to a math task leads to higher achievement among highly math-anxious individuals [ 75 ].…”

“…By manipulating emotion regulation, previous studies showed that reappraisal can reduce math-anxiety reactions [ 8 , 91 , 92 ] and improve math performance [ 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 91 , 93 ]; however, see [ 12 ].People implement multiple regulatory strategies in any given emotional episode [ 94 ], a phenomenon termed emotion polyregulation [ 95 ].…”

The Need to Develop an Individualized Intervention for Mathematics Anxiety

“…Therefore, i-CBT techniques may ameliorate maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies, which in turn may reduce mathematics anxiety and improve mathematics performance in our students. Along these lines, i-CBT should also include sessions on cognitive reappraisal to manage mathematics anxiety, which is supported by recent studies (Pizzie and Kraemer, 2021). Furthermore, expressive writing may also reduce mathematics anxiety, as it may help understand reasons underlying this form of anxiety.…”

Effects of Motivational Adaptive Instruction on Student Motivation Towards Mathematics in a Technology-Enhanced Learning Classroom

“…Further, Holmes and Hwang (2016) explained that the affordance of project-based learning activities for providing utility value of mathematics improved students' intrinsic motivation as students were solving real-world problems. Emotions are often associated with motivation in mathematics education et al, 2017) or math anxiety as well (Pizzie & Kraemer, 2021).…”