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Sex & Gender Differences Revisited

New Perspectives and New Findings

EditorsMarkus HausmannBarbara Schober

Sex and gender are among the most heavily investigated interindividual factors in all areas of psychol-ogy and there has been an explosion of theories and research in this field in the past several years. Al-though the majority of experts would agree that sex and gender differences in mind and behavior are neither purely biological nor purely social in origin, it seems that the proportions attributable to nature and nurture are still being negotiated. New research takes into account biological and social factors as well as the interaction between them and addresses “the small difference” within a psychobiosocial approach. This volume integrates research on sex and gender differences from various psychological disciplines and emphasizes a psychobiosocial approach as a promising new perspective in this field.

Sex & Gender Differences Revisited: New Perspectives and New FindingsMarkus Hausmann and Barbara Schober (Editors)

Contents include:

A Threat in the Classroom: Gender Stereotype Activation and Mental-Rotation Performance in Elementary-School ChildrenSarah Neuburger, Petra Jansen, Martin Heil, and Claudia Quaiser-Pohl

Gender Stereotyping Enhances Verbal Fluency Performance in Men (and Women)Marco Hirnstein, Nadja Freund, and Markus Hausmann

What Accounts for Individual and Gender Differences in the Multi-Digit Number Processing of Primary School Children?Helga Krinzinger, Guilherme Wood, and Klaus Willmes

Sex Differences in Competition-Based Attentional SelectionJessica Sänger, Daniel Schneider, Christian Beste, and Edmund Wascher

Is Beauty Beastly? Gender-Specific Effects of Leader Attractiveness and Leadership Style on Followers’ Trust and LoyaltySusanne Braun, Claudia Peus, and Dieter Frey

When Will They Blow My Cover? The Impostor Phenomenon Among Austrian Doctoral StudentsGregor Jöstl, Evelyn Bergsmann, Marko Lüftenegger, Barbara Schober, and Christiane Spiel

Does Gender Matter in Grant Peer Review? An Empirical Investigation Using the Example of the Austrian Science FundRüdiger Mutz, Lutz Bornmann, and Hans-Dieter Daniel

Opinion: Re-Conceptualizing ‘‘Sex’’ and ‘‘Gender’’ in the Human Brain • The Study of Sex Differences: Feminism and Biology

ISBN 978-0-88937-429-4

9 780889 374294

90000

Editor-in-Chief Bernd Leplow

Associate EditorsEdgar Erdfelder · Herta Flor · Dieter FreyFriedrich W. Hesse · Heinz Holling · Christiane Spiel

Zeitschrift für PsychologieFounded by Hermann Ebbinghaus and Arthur König in 1890Volume 220 / Number 2 / 2012ISSN-L 2151-2604 • ISSN-Print 2190-8370 • ISSN-Online 2151-2604

zfp_220_2_cover_2012-05-16.indd 1 21.05.2012 08:57:17

Contents

Editorial

Original Articles

Opinion

Call for Papers

Sex and Gender Differences: New Perspectives and New Findings Withina Psychobiosocial ApproachMarkus Hausmann and Barbara Schober 57

A Threat in the Classroom: Gender Stereotype Activation and Mental-RotationPerformance in Elementary-School ChildrenSarah Neuburger, Petra Jansen, Martin Heil, and Claudia Quaiser-Pohl 61

Gender Stereotyping Enhances Verbal Fluency Performance in Men (and Women)Marco Hirnstein, Nadja Freund, and Markus Hausmann 70

What Accounts for Individual and Gender Differences in the Multi-Digit NumberProcessing of Primary School Children?Helga Krinzinger, Guilherme Wood, and Klaus Willmes 78

Sex Differences in Competition-Based Attentional SelectionJessica Sanger, Daniel Schneider, Christian Beste, and Edmund Wascher 90

Is Beauty Beastly? Gender-Specific Effects of Leader Attractiveness and LeadershipStyle on Followers’ Trust and LoyaltySusanne Braun, Claudia Peus, and Dieter Frey 98

When Will They Blow My Cover? The Impostor Phenomenon Among AustrianDoctoral StudentsGregor Jostl, Evelyn Bergsmann, Marko Luftenegger, Barbara Schober,and Christiane Spiel 109

Does Gender Matter in Grant Peer Review? An Empirical Investigation Usingthe Example of the Austrian Science FundRudiger Mutz, Lutz Bornmann, and Hans-Dieter Daniel 121

Re-Conceptualizing ‘‘Sex’’ and ‘‘Gender’’ in the Human BrainAnelis Kaiser 130

The Study of Sex Differences: Feminism and BiologyAnne Campbell 137

‘‘Optimal Design’’: A Topical Issue of the Zeitschrift fur PsychologieGuest Editor: Heinz Holling 144

� 2012 Hogrefe Publishing Zeitschrift fur Psychologie 2012; Vol. 220(2)

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Original Article

A Threat in the ClassroomGender Stereotype Activation and Mental-Rotation

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 SportsScience, 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 studyinvestigated 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 inthe ‘‘girls better’’-condition and in the ‘‘no gender difference’’-condition: As expected, the male performance advantage disappeared after thesetwo instructions, because girls improved and boys deteriorated. Thus, the study suggests that the gender effect in mental rotation is affected bystereotype threat and stereotype lift from the very beginning of its occurrence. Results are discussed within a biopsychosocial framework andseem 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 objectsin mind (Shepard & Metzler, 1971). The male advantagein adults’ mental-rotation performance is well documented(Maccoby & Jacklin, 1974; Masters & Sanders, 1993;McGee, 1979; Linn & Petersen, 1985) and, with an effectsize of about one standard deviation, one of the largest cog-nitive gender differences (Halpern, 2000). Contrary to othergender differences, it has not declined during the past dec-ades (Voyer, Voyer, & Bryden, 1995), which suggests thatit might be caused by hereditary, biological factors. Thisassumption is supported by findings of gender differencesin 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, & Gunturkun,2000). However, there are also findings that do not supportpure biological theories of the gender difference in mentalrotation. First, several studies could not show a clear rela-tionship 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 toinfluence mental-rotation performance, for example, genderrole 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 biopsychosocialframework ‘‘based on the continuous interplay of biologicaland psychological variables’’ (Halpern, Wai, & Saw, 2005,p. 68) seems to be the most appropriate model for under-standing the gender effect in mental rotation.

For understanding the dynamic, interactive processesleading to the gender difference in adults’ mental rotation,it seems useful to investigate differences in males’ andfemales’ performance in various ages. Recent studies sug-gest that the gender difference emerges before adolescence(e.g., Geiser, Lehmann, & Eid, 2008), probably at about10 years (Neuburger, Jansen, Heil, & Quaiser-Pohl, 2011;Titze, Jansen, & Heil, 2010). This can be explained on thebasis of prepubertal hormonal changes (Archibald, Graber& Brooks-Gunn, 2006; Reiter & Grumbach, 1982) as wellas by sociocultural processes. In middle and late childhood,stereotype consciousness increases (McKown & Weinstein,2003), accompanied by major steps in the development ofself-concepts of ability (Damon & Hart, 1988; Marsh,Barnes, Cairns, & Tidman, 1984; Ruble, 1987) and genderrole identity (Ruble &Martin, 1998). Therefore, fourth grad-ers are more likely aware of gender stereotypes regardingspatial abilities than younger elementary-school children,and they probably already have internalized thesestereotypes.

In contrast to mathematics (e.g., Cvencek, Meltzoff, &Greenwald, 2011; Steele, 2003; Wigfield et al., 1997), ste-reotypes of spatial performance have rarely been investi-gated in children. In adults, Blanton, Christie, and Dye

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(2002) as well as Hausmann, Schoofs, Rosenthal, andJordan (2009) found a strong stereotype of male superiorityin mental rotation. According to Nash (1979), children in thesecond grade begin to perceive spatial skills as masculine. Ina recent study (Neuburger, Jansen, Heil, & Quaiser-Pohl,2012), fourth-grade boys and girls rated spatial activitiesand tasks (mental rotation, building something accordingto construction plans, understanding maps and roadschemes, playing with Lego, and performing well on line-reflection tasks) as more typical for boys than for girls.

Being linked to the gender gap in science, technology,engineering, and mathematics (Else-Quest, Hyde, & Linn,2010), stereotypes of performance are a major research topicof gender studies. Stereotypes potentially affect both abili-ties and performance. First, they can exert long-term effectson skill acquisition by influencing ability-related attitudesand beliefs in relevant others (e.g., parents, teachers, orpeers) and the individuals themselves. These attitudes deter-mine the degree to which the individual gathers experiencesrelevant to the skill domain and thus can lead to ability dif-ferences between groups (for a more detailed analysis oflong-term sociocultural influences on gender differencessee Bussey & Bandura, 1999). Second, there are short-termsocial influences which can determine the individual’s per-formance in a certain situation.

The present study focuses on a specific situational socialinfluence on cognitive performance contributing to groupdifferences in various domains, the so-called ‘‘stereotypethreat’’ (ST). It refers to ‘‘the event of a negative stereotypeabout a group to which one belongs becoming self-relevant’’(Steele, 1997, p. 616), and to ‘‘being at risk of confirming,as self-characteristic, a negative stereotype about one’sgroup’’ (Steele & Aronson, 1995, p. 797). According toNguyen and Ryan (2008), ST cuing can be either indirectand subtle (e.g., by priming the stereotyped group identityor by emphasizing the evaluative or diagnostic nature ofthe test), moderately explicit (e.g., by informing about theexistence of group differences but not about the directionof these differences), or blatant (e.g., by indicating a group’sinferiority in the test). According to Schmader, Johns, andForbes (2008), ST impairs performance because it triggersthree different mechanisms reducing the capacity of workingmemory: physiological stress, monitoring processes, andemotion-suppressing efforts. These mechanisms are elicitedby a cognitive imbalance between the individual’s conceptof self, ability domain, and group: ‘‘My group does not havethis ability, I am like my group, but I think that I have thisability’’ (Schmader et al., 2008, p. 338). As Martinot andDesert (2007) point out, ST occurs as soon as an individualis aware of a negative in-group stereotype, even if the stereo-type in question is not endorsed, that is, internalized by theindividual. ST effects have been reported in a variety ofgroups and ability domains, for example, with African-Americans in national school tests (e.g., Steele & Aronson,1995), Caucasians in sports (Stone, 2002), and women inmathematics (e.g., Spencer, Steele, & Quinn, 1999).

The present study investigated the influence of ST on themental-rotation performance of fourth graders, that is, theprobably youngest age group, in which a male performanceadvantage can be reliably detected. Three reasons suggest

that ST affects the gender difference in fourth graders’ men-tal-rotation performance:

First, ST effects have already been found in elementary-school children in other performance domains (e.g., Alter,Aronson, Darley, Rodriguez, & Ruble, 2010; Desert,Preaux, & Jund, 2009). With regard to gender, Ambady,Shih, Kim, and Pittinsky (2001) and Tomasetto, Alparone,and Cadinu (2011) induced ST effects in 5–7-year-old chil-dren’s mathematical performance by a painting task thatactivated gender identity. Thus, ST effects occur before ado-lescence. Second, ST should affect children’s mental-rota-tion performance because mental rotation strongly relieson working memory for representing standard and compar-ison in the visual scratchpad, executing the rotation in mind,and maintaining the rotated comparison in awareness whilecomparing it with the target (see, e.g., Ilan & Miller, 1994).As ST impairs working memory capacity, mental-rotationperformance should be very vulnerable to ST effects. A thirdreason for expecting such ST effects in children is that theseeffects have already been demonstrated in adult females’mental-rotation performance (Hausmann et al., 2009; Moe,2009; Moe & Pazzaglia, 2006; Sharps, Welton, & Price,1993). Sharps et al. (1993) found that the male advantagein mental-rotation (measured with the ‘‘Mental Rotation Test(MRT),’’ Vandenberg & Kuse, 1978) and spatial-memorytasks disappeared, when instruction deemphasized the spa-tial character of the tasks. Moe and colleagues (Moe,2009; Moe & Pazzaglia, 2006) induced the ‘‘able in the taskstereotype’’ by providing explicit information about genderdifferences in the MRT. Both men’s and women’s mental-rotation performance improved when a positive stereotypeconcerning their own sex was induced, whereas perfor-mance decreased in case of a negative stereotype. Theperformance improvement due to the activation of a positivein-group stereotype is called ‘‘stereotype lift,’’ which can bedefined as ‘‘a performance boost that occurs when down-ward comparisons are made with a denigrated outgroup’’(Walton & Cohen, 2003, p. 456). Stereotype lift has beendemonstrated both with regard to motor performance(Chalabaev, Stone, & Sarrazin, 2008) and in the intellectualdomain (Chatard, Selimbegovic, Konan, & Mugny, 2008).Shih, Pittinsky, and Ambady (1999) found that the activa-tion of Asian women’s ethnic identity improved their quan-titative performance, whereas the activation of their genderidentity led to a performance decrease. Thus, stereotype acti-vation can affect performance in both positive and negativedirections.

Design and Hypotheses

The present study examined if the stereotype threat and ste-reotype lift effects reported by Moe (2009) already affectelementary-school children’s mental-rotation performance.Three instructions (‘‘boys better,’’ ‘‘girls better,’’ and ‘‘nogender difference’’) were compared with regard to theirinfluence on boys’ and girls’ performance. Before and afterthe respective instruction, children solved a mental-rotationtask, so that their performance before the gender stereotype

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instruction could be compared to their performance after-wards. Pre- and posttest consisted of identically structuredpaper-pencil tasks. Stimulus material was varied betweenthe two tests, so that training effects based on stimulusfamiliarity were excluded (for the effect of stimulus familiar-ity on strategy use see Bethell-Fox & Shepard, 1988; Sims& Mayer, 2002).

The study had a 2 (time: before vs. after stereotype acti-vation) · 2 (gender: male vs. female) · 3 (instruction: ‘‘boysbetter’’ vs. ‘‘girls better’’ vs. ‘‘no gender difference’’) –mixed design. We expected to find a three-way interactionof time, gender, and instruction: The ‘‘boys better’’-instruc-tion should increase the salience of the spatial gender stereo-type and therefore reinforce the male performanceadvantage, that is, girls should deteriorate and boys shouldimprove from pre- to posttest. The ‘‘girls better’’-instructionshould remove ST and therefore counteract the male perfor-mance advantage, that is, girls should improve and boysshould deteriorate. The ‘‘no gender difference’’-instructionwas also expected to reduce the gender difference becauseit removes ST (Nguyen & Ryan, 2008) and therefore shouldpromote girls’ performance, while boys’ performanceshould no more benefit from stereotype lift and thusdeteriorate.

Method

Participants

Two hundred sixteen fourth graders (age: 9.33–11.67 years,M = 10.18, SD = 0.48) from predominantly rural schools inGermany participated in the study. Parents gave their writ-ten, informed consent and provided information concerningtheir SES. Participating classes received 2€ per child for theclass treasury and were assigned to one of the three instruc-tions (‘‘boys better’’ vs. ‘‘girls better’’ vs. ‘‘no gender differ-ence’’) by the experimenter. In each condition, 36 boys and36 girls were tested. The sample included children fromfamilies with low (11%), middle (30%), and high (59%)SES.

Material

The mental-rotation task was constructed similarly to theMRT (Vandenberg & Kuse, 1978). Each item consisted ofone target on the left side and four comparison stimuli onthe right. Two of the four comparisons were ‘‘correct’’ (pic-ture-plane rotated versions of the target), and two were‘‘incorrect’’ (mirror images of the target). Participants hadto cross out the two ‘‘correct’’ comparisons. The mental-rotation task consisted of 16 test items; four items at a timewere presented per DIN-A4-sized, landscape-formattedsheet of paper. Six rotation angles were used: 45�, 90�,135�, 225�, 270�, and 315�. In the pretest, the rotation stim-uli were perspective drawings of cube figures (Shepard &Metzler, 1971), in the posttest, the rotation stimuli were

upper- and lower-case letters. Both task versions consistedof picture-plane rotations, in contrast to the in-depth rota-tions of the MRT (Vandenberg & Kuse, 1978). Figure 1shows sample items from the two task versions, whichhad been designed for assessing the mental-rotation perfor-mance of elementary-school children in an earlier study(Neuburger et al., 2011). In that previous study, an equalgender effect in favor of males had been found in both taskversions.

We controlled for general cognitive abilities by adminis-tering the subtest ‘‘Reasoning’’ of the ‘‘Cognitive-AbilityTest’’ (KFT 1-3; Heller & Geisler, 1983). This test consistsof 15 items, which are made up of five pictures, respectively.Four of the five pictures belong to the same category (e.g.,vegetables, toys). One picture does not fit into this category,and the child has to detect this picture. The test was chosenbecause it measures general nonverbal cognitive abilities,and because performance in the test does not stronglydepend on visual-spatial abilities. Information about socio-economic status was gathered by a questionnaire based onthe measure provided by Jockel et al. (1998).

Procedure

The experiment was conducted by a female experimenter inclassrooms during regular schooltime in class-based groupsof 10–25 children. After a short introduction, children weregiven the KFT subtest. Since the KFT is a power test, therewas no temporal constraint. When all participants had fin-ished the KFT, the concept of ‘‘mentally rotating objects’’was introduced by rotating a real, familiar object (a pair ofscissors) accompanied with the words ‘‘The next task isabout rotating pictures in your mind. If you rotate an object,like this pair of scissors, it looks different. But I think eachof you can see that it is still the same object, can’t you?’’ Inthe next step, the mental-rotation task was explained on anoverhead projector. To support task understanding, the targetpicture and the four comparisons of a sample task had beencut out (with the surrounding circle) and were shown on theprojector. Children were asked to judge each comparisonand to decide if it could be rotated in such a way that itwould look the same as the target. For each comparison,one child was allowed to manually rotate the comparisonon the overhead projector in order to check the correctness

Figure 1. Sample items from the mental-rotation tasks.(top: pretest, bottom: posttest).

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of his or her answer. After two practice items, which chil-dren solved on their own, the test started. For the lettersmental-rotation task, children were given 2 min; for thecube-figures task, they were given 4 min. (These testingtimes were chosen on the basis of pilot tests in order toavoid floor and ceiling effects.)

When the first mental-rotation task (pretest) was fin-ished, the gender-difference instruction was given. In thecondition ‘‘boys better,’’ the experimenter said: ‘‘Now youwill get another task, which is also about rotating picturesin your mind. By the way, I have some information foryou: In such tasks, boys are somewhat more skilled thangirls. They have a better ability to imagine how picturesand objects look when they are rotated. For girls, such tasksare therefore somewhat more difficult. Nevertheless Iencourage both boys and girls to do your best.’’ In the con-dition ‘‘girls better,’’ the experimenter said: ‘‘In such tasks,girls are somewhat more skilled than boys. They have a bet-ter ability to imagine how pictures and objects look whenthey are rotated. For boys, such tasks are therefore some-what more difficult. Nevertheless I encourage both boysand girls to do your best.’’ In the condition ‘‘no gender dif-ference,’’ the experimenter said: ‘‘In such tasks, boys andgirls are equally skilled. Both have an equal ability to imag-ine how pictures and objects look when they are rotated.Therefore, such tasks are exactly equally difficult or easyfor girls and boys. Give your best to solve the task as wellas you can.’’ After the gender-difference instruction, the sec-ond mental-rotation task was solved. Afterwards, an implicitmanipulation check similar to that used by Ambady et al.(2001) was administered. The following story was readaloud: ‘‘In my school, there were many smart children,but one child was especially smart. This child had A’s inall subjects and could figure out questions that even the tea-cher was unable to solve. One of the greatest strengths ofthis child was solving such tasks like the ones you have justsolved, that is tasks in which you have to imagine objects inspace. No other person in the whole school could rotate pic-tures in their mind as well as this child could.’’ After havingread the story, the experimenter asked: ‘‘What do you think:Was this child a boy or a girl?’’ The question was answeredby the children on a sheet of paper.

When data gathering in the schools was finished, partic-ipants were debriefed by their teachers, who were thor-oughly informed about the background and the aims ofthe study. We emphasized that both girls and boys showedgood mental-rotation performance in our tasks.

Data Analysis

Data were analyzed by a 2 · 2 · 3-repeated-measuresANCOVA with the within-subject factor time (before vs.after stereotype activation) and the between-subject factorsgender (boys vs. girls) and instruction (‘‘boys better’’ vs.‘‘girls better’’ vs. ‘‘no gender difference’’). Age wasincluded as covariate in the analyses because of the ageheterogeneity of the sample. The dependent measure(mental-rotation performance) was defined as z-transformed

number of correctly solved items (= items in which the childhad crossed out the two correct sample stimuli and none ofthe mirror images, see Peters et al., 1995). The analyseswere conducted with z-scores computed separately for pre-and posttest scores in order to adjust the two difficulty levelsof the pretest (the more difficult cube-figures task) and theposttest (the easier letters task). Following Moe and Pazza-glia (2006), effect sizes of the performance changes accord-ing to Cohen (1977) are reported. In addition to the overallANCOVA, separate 2 (time) · 2 (gender) – ANCOVAswere computed for the three instruction groups, and effectsizes of the gender differences in the standardized pre-and posttest scores are reported for each instruction group.

Results

Before analyzing mental-rotation performance, the sixgroups (boys/‘‘boys better,’’ boys/‘‘girls better,’’ girls/‘‘boysbetter,’’ girls/‘‘girls better,’’ boys/‘‘no gender difference,girls/’’no gender difference’’) were compared with respectto reasoning ability (KFT score). No significant group differ-ences were found (all p > .05).

Regarding the raw scores, boys and girls in both condi-tions showed a considerably higher performance level in thesecond mental-rotation task than in the first task: boys/‘‘boysbetter’’: M = 3.67 (SD = 2.40) versus M = 11.33(SD = 3.25); boys/‘‘girls better’’: M = 5.11 (SD = 2.88)and M = 11.56 (SD = 3.75); boys/‘‘no gender difference’’:M = 4.72 (SD = 2.67) versus M = 10.75 (SD = 4.06);girls/‘‘boys better’’: M = 4.06 (SD = 2.60) and M = 11.33(SD = 3.73); girls/‘‘girls better’’: M = 3.61 (SD = 2.06)and M = 11.81 (SD = 3.12); girls/‘‘no gender difference’’:M = 3.31 (SD = 2.78) versus M = 11.86 (SD = 3.58).Thus, the stimulus material used in the mental-rotation pre-test (cube figures) led to a higher task difficulty compared tothe posttest stimuli (letters). Therefore in the following anal-yses, the z-transformed performance scores were used asdependent variables so that the main effect of time (i.e., pre-test vs. posttest) was leveled out.

The overall 2 · 2 · 3-ANCOVA revealed the expectedTime · Gender · Instruction interaction, F(2, 209) = 4.53;p = .012; g2 = .04. Furthermore, there was a two-way inter-action of time and gender, F(1, 209) = 9.46; p = .002;g2 = .04. All further effects, including the effect of thecovariate age, were not significant, all p > .10; allg2 < .005. Figure 2 shows that girls’ performance improvedafter the ‘‘girls better’’-instruction (d = .34) and the ‘‘nogender difference’’-instruction (d = .40), but stayed aboutthe same after the ‘‘boys better’’-instruction (d = .02). Boys’performance slightly improved after the ‘‘boys better’’-instruction (d = .14) and deteriorated after the ‘‘girlsbetter’’-instruction (d = .34) and the ‘‘no gender differ-ence’’-instruction (d = .41).

The three 2 · 2-ANCOVAs computed separately foreach instruction condition revealed the following results(the reported p values are Bonferroni corrected): In the‘‘boys better’’-condition, none of the interactions and main

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effects reached significance, all p > .10; all g2 < .04. Neitherin the pretest nor in the posttest boys outperformed girls:Unexpectedly, there was a performance advantage of girls

in the pretest (d = .16), and no gender difference in theposttest (d < .001). In the ‘‘girls better’’-condition, therewas a significant Time · Gender interaction,F(1, 69) = 9.65; p = .009; g2 = .12, and none of theremaining effects reached significance, all p > .10; allg2 < .03. As expected, boys outperformed girls in the pretest(d = .60), but not in the posttest, where, on the descriptivelevel, girls slightly outperformed boys (d = .07). In the‘‘no gender difference’’-condition, there was also a signifi-cant Time · Gender interaction, F(1, 69) = 11.77;p = .003; g2 = .15, and none of the remaining effectsreached significance, all p > .10; all g2 < .005. As in the‘‘girls better’’-condition, boys outperformed girls in the pre-test (d = .52), but not in the posttest, where girls slightlyoutperformed boys (d = .29).

Answers in the manipulation-check task indicated that inthe ‘‘boys better’’-condition and the ‘‘girls better’’-condition,the majority of both boys and girls believed in the activatedstereotype: In the condition ‘‘boys better,’’ 100% of the boysand 77.8% of the girls (significantly more than 50%,v2(1) = 11.11; p = .001) assumed the spatially talentedchild in the story to be a boy. In the condition ‘‘girls better,’’72.2% of the boys (significantly more than 50%,v2(1) = 27.17; p < .001) and 83.3% of the girls (signifi-cantly more than 50%, v2(1) = 16.00; p < .001) answered‘‘The child in the story was a girl.’’ In the ‘‘no gender dif-ference’’-condition, answers were expected to be equallydistributed, that is, 50% of the participants should answer‘‘boy’’ and 50% should answer ‘‘girl.’’ However, this wasnot confirmed: 77.8% of the boys (significantly more than50%, v2(1) = 11.11; p = .001) answered ‘‘The child was aboy.’’ and 69.4% of the girls (significantly more than50%, v2(1) = 5.44; p = .02) answered ‘‘The child was agirl.’’ Thus, in the ‘‘no gender difference’’-condition, bothboys and girls showed a bias toward assigning their ownsex to the spatially talented child.

Discussion

Results indicate that the gender effect in fourth graders’ men-tal-rotation performance is affected by stereotype threat andstereotype lift. More specifically, the hypotheses were par-tially confirmed: After being instructed that girls outper-formed boys or that there was no gender difference inmental-rotation task, girls’ performance improved and boys’performance deteriorated. Girls’ improvement can beexplained by the ST reducing nature of these instructions(Nguyen & Ryan, 2008). Boys’ performance decrease wassupposedly caused by the absence of stereotype lift after the‘‘no gender difference’’-instruction and the artificiallyinduced reversed STafter the ‘‘girls better’’-instruction. Con-trary to the hypotheses, the instruction that boys outperformedgirls did not lead to an increase of the male advantage: Bothboys’ and girls’ performance stayed at about the same levelafter the instruction. Furthermore, contrary to the two otherinstruction groups, boys in the ‘‘boys better’’-group did notoutperform girls in the pretest. This nonexistence of the

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Figure 2. Pre- and posttest mental-rotation scores of thethree experimental groups as a function of gender. Errorbars represent ±1 standard error.

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expected male performance advantage before the instructionmakes it difficult to interpret the absence of a performancechange after the instruction. As we have no plausible theoret-ical interpretation of the pretest results in the ‘‘boys better’’-group, the field context and its potential confoundingvariables might provide for an explanation. Children wererecruited from public schools, and variables that might haveinfluenced the gender difference in mental-rotation perfor-mance, for example, quality of previous geometry lessons,sex of the mathematics teacher, or differences in gender-sen-sitive teaching, were not controlled. Although each groupincluded children from various schools and classes wereassigned to the conditions by the experimenter, girls-promot-ing school contexts might have been overrepresented in the‘‘boys better’’-condition, which might have distorted theresults. Laboratory studies assigning children individuallyto the conditions and controlling for potential confoundingvariables would be useful to reexamine the effect of the ‘‘boysbetter’’-instruction. Since the blatant activation of positive in-group stereotypes does not always result in performanceboosts for targets (Shih, Ambady, Richeson, Fujita, & Gray,2002), further studies are necessary to clarify if the ‘‘boys bet-ter’’-instruction actually increases the gender effect in fourthgraders’ mental-rotation performance or not. Moreover, somestudies do not confirm the effect of gender identity salienceand gender stereotype priming on fourth graders’ perfor-mance (Ambady et al., 2001; Muzzatti & Agnoli, 2007). Asin adults, the occurrence and the size of ST probably dependon how the stereotype is activated (Nguyen & Ryan, 2008).Additionally, stereotype stratification (Steele, 2003) mightaccount for diverging results regarding ST in children afterdifferent stereotype activating cues; when the cue refers toadults, children might not apply the stereotype to their ownage group (see Muzzatti & Agnoli, 2007).

In line with the study of Moe and Pazzaglia (2006), thepresent results confirm the influence of stereotypes on thegender effect in mental rotation. Additionally, it suggeststhat after explicitly outlining the equal skills of boys andgirls, the male advantage disappears, at least in fourth grad-ers. Thus, this study provides tentative evidence that thegender effect in mental rotation is affected by stereotypethreat (in girls) and stereotype lift (in boys) from the verybeginning of its occurrence. This assumption requires fur-ther theoretical and empirical investigation, especiallybecause of specific methodical constraints of the presentstudy. First, the effect of stereotype activation was measuredby pre-post changes, and the three experimental groups dif-fered with regard to the gender effect in the pretest scores.As outlined above, this complicates the interpretation ofthe pre-post changes. A second methodical constraint is thatstereotypes were explicitly activated. This method can becriticized from an ethical and a theoretical perspective: Tell-ing elementary-school children that their own gender per-forms worse in spatial tests might have negative effects ontheir further development, unless participants are carefullydebriefed. Although this was done in the present study,some kind of ‘‘undoing manipulation check’’ would havebeen desirable to ensure that stereotype activation did notnegatively affect the participating children. From a theoreti-cal point of view, it should be discussed if the concept of

‘‘ST’’ includes effects of explicitly induced stereotypes orif such phenomena better fit into the general category ofthe Rosenthal effect (Rosenthal & Fode, 1963; Rosenthal& Jacobson, 1968). In order to provide an empirical basisfor this discussion, the cognitive mechanisms mediatingthe effects of explicit stereotype activation on performanceshould be analyzed and compared to the mechanisms medi-ating the effect of implicit stereotype activation.

Both stereotype threat and self-fulfilling prophecies playan important role in gender socialization and are part of thehidden curriculum in schools (Basow, 2004, 2010). This hasbeen demonstrated by gender biases in learning materials(Gooden & Gooden, 2001) and differences in teachers’interactions with boys versus girls (Sadker & Zittleman,2007): Especially in mathematics and science (Jovanovic& King, 1998), boys receive more attention and are morestrongly involved. In the context of visuospatial abilities,which are important prerequisites for mathematics and sci-ence, future studies should assess the degree to which gen-der stereotypes in this domain exist in children and teachers.

As outlined in the Introduction, both biological andsocial-psychological variables have been demonstrated toinfluence the gender difference in mental rotation. There-fore, the present findings should be interpreted and furtherexamined within a biopsychosocial framework. Concerningbiological factors, some studies with adult females suggestan influence of testosterone and estrogen levels on mentalrotation, which leads to performance fluctuations duringthe menstrual cycle (Hausmann et al., 2000; Maki, Rich,& Rosenbaum, 2002). For adult males, the effect of stereo-type activation on spatial test performance seems to beaccompanied by an increase of testosterone levels (Haus-mann et al., 2009). As suggested by Estes and Felker(2011), the influence of both biological and social variableson mental rotation might be mediated by the same psycho-logical processes. One of these mediating psychologicalvariables is probably self-confidence: On the one hand,confidence predicts mental-rotation performance, suppos-edly by affecting strategy use (Estes & Felker, 2011), andon the other hand, confidence relates to testosterone levels(Johnson, Zava, & McCoy, 2000) and stereotype activation(Chalabaev et al., 2008; Steele, 1997; Walton & Cohen,2003).

The link between biological variables and ST has notyet been studied in preadolescent subjects. However,understanding the developmental pathways of the genderdifference in mental-rotation and other performancedomains requires the theoretical and empirical integrationof biological, social, and psychological variables. Revealingthe effects of spatial-technical gender stereotypes on chil-dren’s performance is one important pillar of such a biopsy-chosocial conception of the largest cognitive genderdifference (Halpern, 2000).

Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the German Research Founda-tion (DFG QU/96 4-1/JA 889/7-1). We thank Anna Roheand Robby Schoenfeld, who supported the development of

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the rotation tasks. We thank Vera Heuser and MadeleineStein for data entry, and all children and teachers of theparticipating schools.

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Sarah Neuburger

Department of PsychologyUniversity of Koblenz-LandauUniversitatsstr. 156070 KoblenzGermanyTel. +49 261 287-1934Fax +49 261 287-1921E-mail neuburger@uni-koblenz.de

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