Frontiers in Psychology (Jun 2022)

The Impact of Parents' Intelligence Mindset on Math Anxiety of Boys and Girls and the Role of Parents' Failure Beliefs and Evaluation of Child's Math Performance as Mediators

  • Fang Xie,
  • Xiangfei Duan,
  • Xuelian Ni,
  • Lina Li,
  • Libin Zhang

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.687136
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 13

Abstract

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This study aimed to examine the relationship between parents' intelligence mindset and children's math anxiety and the mediating role of parents' failure mindset and evaluations of their child's math performance. A total of 419 Chinese students (196 boys and 223 girls) and their parents were recruited to complete a series of questionnaires on topics such as math anxiety, parent's failure mindset, parent's intelligence mindset, and parents' evaluations of their child's mathematical performance. The results revealed that parents' intelligence mindset was not correlated with children's math anxiety. However, parents' intelligence mindset indirectly predicted children's math anxiety through the chain-mediated role of parents' failure beliefs and parents' evaluations of their child's math performance. Further, sex differences were found through a multigroup analysis, which showed a chain-mediated effect between parents' intelligence mindset and girls' math anxiety.

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