Math anxiety is a vicious circle: having math anxiety hurts performance in math, which makes the sufferer even more anxious and so on.
Now, new research shows that girls have more math anxiety than boys:
"These results might suggest that girls may have had the potential to perform better than boys in mathematics, however, their performance may have been attenuated by higher levels of (mathematics anxiety)," the research team from the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford write online today (July 9) in the journal Behavioral and Brain Functions. [...]
They found that test anxiety was also linked to poor mathematics performance, but this link was stronger for girls than boys.
Wayne Parry of LiveScience explains: Link
Math = Incorrect
Me = Correct
Everyone else = Incorrect
math = US
It is almost neurologically-impossible to be afraid and creative at the same time.
++'Cognitive-Dissonance', from "The Practice of Behavior Therapy", by Joseph Wolpe.