The myth of the 'math person'

In the 1970s, Sheila Tobias noticed something peculiar going on in mathematics. In one of her early studies, the graduate of Radcliffe College, self-described "scholar activist," and author of 14 books, including the 1978 bestseller "Overcoming Math Anxiety," gave elementary school students a sheet of paper, divided in half. On one side, they worked on a math problem; on the other, they wrote down how the problem made them feel.