TITLE:
Women’s Mental Rotation Abilities as a Function of Priming
AUTHORS:
Leah R. Ryan, Sheila Brownlow, Benjamin Patterson
KEYWORDS:
Mental Rotation, Women’s Cognitive Abilities, Stereotype Threat
JOURNAL NAME:
Psychology,
Vol.6 No.3,
February
12,
2015
ABSTRACT: This
study examined how verbal priming of success or failure words influenced the
Mental Rotation (MR) performance of women under stereotype threat. Women
athletes and non-athletes (N = 67)
completed several MR tasks after doing a word scramble that included positive
or negative sports terms. The MR performance of athletes was diminished in
relation to that of non-athletes when primed with negative sports-related
actions. Negative primes also enhanced the performance of non-athletes in
relation to their peers who had positive primes, but there were no differences
in MR performances under positive priming. Thus, those who identified with a
group experienced threat that negatively impacted performance, but non-athletes
were unlikely to have been affected by evaluative performance concerns.