They then were told their partners' answers were correct, increasing the pressure to do well.
"They started making way more mistakes than people with low anxiety," Ashcraft said.
The findings suggest that performance pressure harms individuals with stronger working memories by consuming the cognitive resources they rely on for their superior performance, Beilock added.
The researchers also found that stereotypes, such as telling girls they don't score as well in math as boys, has a similar stifling affect on brain power.
The psychologists did offer a bit of advice to try to counteract math phobias: Acknowledge the feeling, set it aside and just get on with solving the problem.
The findings were presented at the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in San Francisco this month.
