The Effects of Visual Pet Stimuli on Stress and Math Performance

Math anxiety impairs mathematical performance even in people who are capable of completing the mathematical operations. Pets have been shown to both reduce stress and improve performance during mathematical tasks, and thus may be used to alleviate math anxiety. We tested the effects of visual pet stimuli on stress and performance during timed sets of high school level math problems. The math problems were presented in sets with either images of pets, images of desks, or color blocks displayed vertically along the left hand side of the page. Participants reported the lowest levels of stress for the math problems presented with the pet images which confirmed our hypothesis that self-reported stress would be lowest for the math set presented with the visual pet stimuli. Although there was no concurrent increase in performance, the data suggest that the presence of a comforting stimulus could be an aid to help students relieve math anxiety.