Assignment: Performance in Elementary-School Children

Assignment: Performance in Elementary-School Children

Assignment: Performance in Elementary-School Children

Sarah Neuburger,1 Petra Jansen,2 Martin Heil,3 and Claudia Quaiser-Pohl1

1Institute of Psychology, University of Koblenz-Landau, Koblenz, Germany, 2Institute of Sports Science, University of Regensburg, Germany, 3Institute of Experimental Psychology, University of Düsseldorf, Germany

Abstract. Females’ performance in a gender-stereotyped domain is impaired when negative gender stereotypes are activated (Nguyen & Ryan, 2008). ‘‘Stereotype threat’’ affects the gender difference in adults’ mental-rotation performance (e.g., Moe? & Pazzaglia, 2006). Our study investigated this effect in fourth graders. Two hundred sixteen males and females solved two mental-rotation tests. In between, a gender- difference instruction was given (‘‘boys better,’’ ‘‘girls better,’’ ‘‘no gender difference’’).

A significant interaction of time and gender was found in the ‘‘girls better’’-condition and in the ‘‘no gender difference’’-condition: As expected, the male performance advantage disappeared after these two instructions, because girls improved and boys deteriorated. Thus, the study suggests that the gender effect in mental rotation is affected by stereotype threat and stereotype lift from the very beginning of its occurrence. Results are discussed within a biopsychosocial framework and seem to play an important role with regard to the ‘‘hidden curriculum’’ in schools.

Keywords: stereotype threat, gender differences, elementary-school children, mental rotation

Mental rotation, a subcomponent of visual-spatial abilities, refers to the rotation of two- or three-dimensional objects in mind (Shepard & Metzler, 1971). The male advantage in adults’ mental-rotation performance is well documented (Maccoby & Jacklin, 1974; Masters & Sanders, 1993; McGee, 1979; Linn & Petersen, 1985) and, with an effect size of about one standard deviation, one of the largest cog- nitive gender differences (Halpern, 2000). Contrary to other gender differences, it has not declined during the past dec- ades (Voyer, Voyer, & Bryden, 1995), which suggests that it might be caused by hereditary, biological factors.

This assumption is supported by findings of gender differences in mental rotation at very young ages (e.g., Levine, Huttenl- ocher, Taylor, & Langrock, 1999; Quinn & Liben, 2008) and by links between spatial performance on the one hand, and specific genes (Bock & Kolakowski, 1973; Pezaris & Casey, 1991) and sex hormone levels on the other hand (e.g., Grimshaw, Sitarenios, & Finegan, 1995; Hausmann, Slabbekorn, Van Goosen, Cohen-Kettenis, & Gu?ntu?rku?n, 2000). However, there are also findings that do not support pure biological theories of the gender difference in mental rotation.

First, several studies could not show a clear relationship between mental-rotation skills and endogenous lev- els of sex hormones (e.g., Halari et al., 2005; Hines et al., 2003; Rahman, Wilson, & Abrahams, 2004). Second, social-psychological variables have been demonstrated to influence mental-rotation performance, for example, gender role identity (McGlone & Aronson, 2006; Ortner & Siever- ding, 2008; Saucier, McCreary, & Saxberg, 2002), stereo- types (Moe?, 2009; Moe? & Pazzaglia, 2006), causal attribution (Moe?, 2012; Moe? & Pazzaglia, 2010), and confi- dence (Estes & Felker, 2011).

Thus, a biopsychosocial framework ‘‘based on the continuous interplay of biological and psychological variables’’ (Halpern, Wai, & Saw, 2005, p. 68) seems to be the most appropriate model for under- standing the gender effect in mental rotation.