تفاوت های فردی در باورهای به نقش جنسیتی مؤثر بر عملکرد آزمون توانایی فضایی

The gender role hypothesis posits that performance on a cognitive ability test is influenced by whether the test instructions frame the test as measuring a skill that is consistent or inconsistent with the test taker's gender role beliefs. The Bem sex role inventory was used to measure the gender role of female college students, and the group embedded figures test (GEFT) was used to measure their spatial ability. Masculine gender role women scored significantly higher on the GEFT when the test was described as measuring spatial ability, whereas feminine gender role women scored significantly higher when the test was described as measuring empathy. In a second experiment, men did not show the same effects. Implications of individual differences in gender role beliefs are discussed.

Cognitive ability tests have been used for placement decisions in schools for 100 years, dating back to Binet's pioneering research on cognitive ability testing to determine the academic placement of French school students (Wolf, 1973). However, the classical view that cognitive ability tests provide a straightforward measure of a student's cognitive ability has been challenged by more complex views of what influences a student's performance on cognitive ability tests. According to the situative view, a student's performance on a cognitive ability test is determined by the interaction between the student's characteristics and the student's interpretation of the testing situation. In particular, in this study, we examine the gender role hypothesis, which posits that students work harder on a cognitive test when they believe it taps a skill that is consistent rather than inconsistent with their gender role1.