Can girls think spatially? Influence of implicit gender stereotype activation and rotational axis on fourth graders' mental-rotation performance

Implicit and Explicit Gender Beliefs in Spatial Ability: Stronger Stereotyping in Boys than Girls

“…This incongruence indicates that girls, in accordance with social desirable standards, answered that “spatial is for boys” on the self-report questionnaire, but that they did not personally endorse this stereotype. The finding of girls being more egalitarian than boys is in line with previous studies with explicit measures in the spatial domain (Ruthsatz et al, 2012 ; Neuburger et al, 2015 ) and in mathematics (Muzzatti and Agnoli, 2007 ). The incongruence between explicit and implicit measures of girls' gender beliefs underlines the importance of further examining the interrelations and developmental sequence of these two types of beliefs.…”

“…Stereotypical beliefs about certain abilities or activities being typical for one of both sexes (e.g., the belief that spatial ability is for boys) can be assessed with either explicit or implicit measures. Explicit measures are for example self-report questionnaires asking children whether they consider certain abilities and/or activities as more boyish or more girlish (e.g., Neuburger et al, 2015 ). Implicit measurement methods on the other hand are indirect, in that participants are not aware on which concepts or on which relations between concepts they are reporting.…”

“…For the spatial domain, there is evidence for the presence of explicit stereotypic gender beliefs in both boys and girls, although the results are somewhat inconsistent. Neuburger et al ( 2015 ) measured 10-year-old children's gender beliefs on spatial ability by asking questions such as “Who is good at solving mental rotation tasks?,” and “Who is good at imagining spatially?.” Children answered on a five-point scale (i.e., only girls—more girls than boys—as many girls as boys—more boys than girls—only boys). The results showed that both boys and girls considered mental rotation as typically male.…”

“…The explicit gender beliefs were measured by a self-report questionnaire, assessing the degree to which children associated spatial activities with either boys, girls or both sexes. The implicit gender beliefs were measured by a child IAT (based on Cvencek et al, 2011 ), assessing children's implicit associations between “boy” and “spatial.” On basis of previous research, we expected boys to have stronger explicit and implicit stereotypic gender beliefs regarding spatial abilities and activities (i.e., spatial is for boys) than girls (Ruthsatz et al, 2012 ; Neuburger et al, 2015 ). In addition, we expected children's gender beliefs to be stronger male stereotyped in ten- than in 12-year-olds (Muzzatti and Agnoli, 2007 ).…”

Stereotype Threat Effects on Learning From a Cognitively Demanding Mathematics Lesson

“…Stereotype threat is the phenomenon in which fear of being judged through the lens of a negative stereotype results in intrusive thoughts and worries that tax cognitive resources (Schmader & Beilock, 2012). Extensive research in adults (for review see Nguyen & Ryan, 2008) and growing work with children (e.g., McKown & Strambler, 2009;Neuburger, Ruthsatz, Jansen, & Quaiser-Pohl, 2015;Wasserberg, 2014) documents that when a self-relevant negative stereotype is made salient before a test, performance suffers.…”