To him who is in fear everything rustles. Sophocles c. 495 – 406 B.C. Sian Beilock and Thomas Carr, psychologists who specialize in studying how stress affects performance, recently reported on an experiment involving college students taking math exams. When the students were told the exam was just for practice, they scored 10% higher than when they took an equivalent exam and were told their test scores would be used as part of a competition for cash prizes. The social stress of competing for cash prizes directly affected the students’ performance on the exams. Daniel Goleman, author of Social Intelligence, …
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