Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
365051 | Learning and Individual Differences | 2010 | 5 Pages |
The influence of gender beliefs on cognitive task performance has been demonstrated repeatedly for adults. For children, there is evidence that gender beliefs can substantially impede or boost math performance — a task where gender differences in favour of boys declined over past decades. Therefore, we examined this phenomenon using the Mental Rotations Test (MRT), a task where gender differences still occur reliably favouring males — for adults as well as for children. A sample of 252 fourth graders, whose beliefs about spatial ability were manipulated experimentally (instructions given: boys are better, girls are better or independent of gender) had to complete the MRT. In contrast to adult's literature, children's performance did not decrease or increase as a function of instruction: boys always outperformed girls; girls not even outperformed their same-sex counterparts given the “girls better” instruction. The transfer of the conceptual approach failed — possible reasons are discussed.