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

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