Pure anecdote, but maths seems to me to be in a class of its own when it comes to people feeling incapable of solving problems. People may not know much of a fo

Pure anecdote, but maths seems to me to be in a class of its own when it comes to people feeling incapable of solving problems. People may not know much of a foreign language, and they may not enjoy speaking it, but they will rarely look at a sentence in another language and think "Nope, can't work out what that means" when in fact they can. I noticed a particularly odd example of it with my mother, who "hates maths" but has worked with finances all her life. If you ask her what 10% of 200,000 is, she'll say she doesn't know. If you ask her what sort of return she'd expect on a $200k investment she'll say, no shit, "you'd want 10% per year, so... $20,000.". It's not that she's incapable of doing it. Her mind just shuts down when faced with the question.