Journal
ANNALS OF THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
Volume 1513, Issue 1, Pages 108-120Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/nyas.14772
Keywords
math anxiety; emotion regulation; reappraisal; suppression; executive control
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The study found that individuals with math anxiety had difficulty controlling emotional distractions caused by math information, even as simple as math-related words, in high-conflict conditions. It also revealed that the tendency to use reappraisal in everyday situations was associated with math-anxious individuals' ability to avoid heightened emotional reactions when encountering math-related (threatening) information. These findings suggest the efficacy of reappraisal-focused intervention and provide an innovative mechanism to reduce emotional reactions and improve performance among math-anxious individuals.
The literature suggests an interplay between executive control functions and emotion regulation processes, with each playing a key role in math anxiety. We examined the relation between the use of two different emotion regulation strategies (reappraisal and suppression) and the ability to reduce emotional interference in high-conflict situations (i.e., executive control of attention) in cases of math anxiety. A sample of 107 adults completed emotion regulation tendencies and math anxiety questionnaires and performed a flanker task following the priming of a math-related or negative word. The findings revealed: (1) highly math-anxious individuals had difficulty controlling emotional distractions induced by math information, even as simple as math-related words, in high-conflict conditions; and (2) the tendency to use reappraisal in everyday situations was associated with math-anxious individuals' ability to avoid heightened emotional reactions when encountering math-related (i.e., threatening) information. These findings point to the efficacy of reappraisal-focused intervention and suggest an innovative mechanism through which reappraisal reduces emotional reactions and improves performance among math-anxious individuals, indicating a new way to approach interventions for math anxiety.
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