JOIN USPrevious studies have established that women are slower and less accurate than men on a range of spatial tasks. But new research reveals that confidence levels play a key role in women’s ability to perform these tasks.
Psychology researchers Zachary Estes and Sydney Felker from the Universities of Warwick (Britain) and Georgia (US), respectively, looked at women’s ability to perform a standard 3D mental rotation task, while at the same time manipulating their confidence levels.
They found that when they made women feel more confident about themselves, their ability to perform the task improved, the journal Archives of Sexual Behaviour reports.
“Prior research shows that women tend to do poorly on tasks that require spatial awareness. That’s borne out in the common jokes we always hear about men being better at parking and map reading than women," said Estes, according to a Warwick statement.
“Our research suggests that by making a woman feel better about herself, she’ll become better at spatial tasks - which in the real world means tasks such as parking the car or reading a map.
“So a little bit of confidence-boosting may go a long way when it comes to reversing the car into a tight parking spot,” added Estes.
The researchers tested spatial ability through a series of four computer-based experiments on 545 students at a university in the US.