title: Mathematical anxiety is linked to reduced cognitive reflection: a potential road from discomfort in the mathematics classroom to susceptibility to biases.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  When asked to solve mathematical problems, some people experience anxiety and threat, which can lead to impaired mathematical performance (Curr Dir Psychol Sci 11:181-185, 2002). The present studies investigated the link between mathematical anxiety and performance on the cognitive reflection test (CRT; J Econ Perspect 19:25-42, 2005). The CRT is a measure of a person's ability to resist intuitive response tendencies, and it correlates strongly with important real-life outcomes, such as time preferences, risk-taking, and rational thinking.
  
  
  METHODS
  In Experiments 1 and 2 the relationships between maths anxiety, mathematical knowledge/mathematical achievement, test anxiety and cognitive reflection were analysed using mediation analyses. Experiment 3 included a manipulation of working memory load. The effects of anxiety and working memory load were analysed using ANOVAs.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Our experiments with university students (Experiments 1 and 3) and secondary school students (Experiment 2) demonstrated that mathematical anxiety was a significant predictor of cognitive reflection, even after controlling for the effects of general mathematical knowledge (in Experiment 1), school mathematical achievement (in Experiment 2) and test anxiety (in Experiments 1-3). Furthermore, Experiment 3 showed that mathematical anxiety and burdening working memory resources with a secondary task had similar effects on cognitive reflection.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Given earlier findings that showed a close link between cognitive reflection, unbiased decisions and rationality, our results suggest that mathematical anxiety might be negatively related to individuals' ability to make advantageous choices and good decisions.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, Queen's University Belfast, David Keir Building, Belfast BT7 1NN, Northern Ireland, UK. k.morsanyi@qub.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Kinga
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Morsanyi
authors.forename: Chiara
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Busdraghi
authors.forename: Caterina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Primi
mesh_terms: D000124:Achievement; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008433:Mathematics; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D011340:Problem Solving / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult