Mathematics anxiety has been associated to performance in school mathematics. The association between math anxiety and psychosocial competencies as well as their specific contribution to explain school mathematics performance are still unclear. In the present study, the impact of sociodemographic factors, psychosocial competencies, and math anxiety on mathematics and spelling performance was examined in school children with and without mathematics difficulties. The specific contributions of psychosocial competencies (i.e., general anxiety and attentional deficits with hyperactivity) and math anxiety (i.e., self-assessment in mathematics) to school mathematics performance were found to be statistically independent from each other. Moreover, psychosocial competencies—but not math anxiety—were related also to spelling performance. These results suggest that psychosocial competencies are more related to general mechanisms of emotional regulation and emotional response towards academic performance, while mathematics anxiety is related to the specific cognitive aspect of self-assessment in mathematics. 1. Introduction Negative feelings about mathematics are usually associated with low mathematics achievement both in children and adults [1]. Mathematics anxiety (MA) is a feeling of tension, apprehension, or fear that interferes with mathematics performance, or as a state of discomfort in response to mathematics which is perceived as threatening to self-esteem [2]. As math anxious individuals avoid engagement in math tasks, they dedicate less time and effort to learn mathematics, reach lower attainment levels, enroll less in mathematics courses from high school onwards, and eventually select majors with lower mathematics requirements [3]. MA is thus of potential social and economic relevance in a globalized culture that imposes greater and greater demands on science and technology abilities of individuals in career as well as in everyday life. MA is related to more general forms of anxiety, but can be distinguished from them. For instance, Young et al. [4] found brain activity patterns specific of MA to be unrelated to general anxiety, intelligence, working memory, or reading ability. In that study, higher levels of activation were observed in the amygdala and other regions associated with emotional processing [4], while lower levels of activation were found in areas associated to number processing and working memory [5]. MA has been linked to performance-related anxiety disorders such as test anxiety and social phobia [6–8]. Research also indicates that the
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