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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 29, 2026

Utilizing Electroencephalography Measurements for Comparison of Task-Specific Neural Efficiencies: Spatial Intelligence Tasks

Utilizing Electroencephalography Measurements for Comparison of Task-Specific Neural Efficiencies: Spatial Intelligence Tasks

Published on: August 9, 2016

Nurture affects gender differences in spatial abilities.

Moshe Hoffman¹, Uri Gneezy, John A List

¹Rady School of Management, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA. mohoffman@ucsd.edu

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

|August 31, 2011

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

The gender gap in spatial abilities between men and women disappears in matrilineal societies. This suggests that environmental factors, or nurture, play a significant role in cognitive differences.

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Science
Sociology
Psychology

Background:

Women are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.
Persistent gender differences in spatial abilities are often cited as a contributing factor to this underrepresentation.
The debate on nature versus nurture in shaping these spatial ability differences remains largely unresolved.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the role of societal structure in spatial ability gender gaps.
To determine if environmental factors (nurture) influence cognitive differences between genders.

Main Methods:

A large-scale incentivized experiment involving nearly 1,300 participants.
Comparison of spatial abilities (measured by puzzle-solving time) between individuals in patrilineal and matrilineal societies.
Analysis of the impact of educational differences on spatial ability gaps.

Main Results:

The gender gap in spatial abilities vanished when moving from a patrilineal to a matrilineal society.
Approximately one-third of the observed effect was attributable to educational disparities.
Participants had no prior puzzle-solving experience, and both societies shared similar subsistence and genetic backgrounds.

Conclusions:

Societal structure and environmental factors significantly influence gender differences in cognitive abilities, specifically spatial skills.
Nurture plays a demonstrable role in shaping the gender gap in cognitive abilities, challenging purely innate explanations.
Education is a key environmental factor contributing to spatial ability disparities between genders.