How does math anxiety affect math performance? An experimental online two-study investigation into the mechanism driving math anxiety interventions

Decades of research and meta-analyses consistently reveal a moderate relation between math performance and math anxiety (MA). The most commonly cited light-touch intervention for MA proposed in the literature is expressive writing. However, there are still many open questions related to expressive writing and, more broadly, MA interventions. The current article presents two online studies (ns = 168 and 505) that aimed to disrupt the MA-math performance relation by providing different light-touch interventions (expressive writing, priming increased math self-concept [MSC], and two control groups). Additionally, we recorded state MA probes to explore how MA fluctuates during math tasks. Participants in neither the expressive writing nor the MSC conditions out-performed participants in the control conditions on the posttest math performance measures. The MSC intervention may have acted as a buffer against the potentially deleterious effects on MSC of completing math tasks. State MA significantly fluctuated in both studies across the five different time points. Findings from the current two-study article suggest that there may be important boundary conditions of expressive writing, MSC interventions may provide a buffer to the affective components of mathematical problem solving, and MA can be experimentally manipulated in short experimental settings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).