Cognitive Sex/Gender Differences and the Beliefs in Own Spatial Abilities

Sex/gender differences in specific spatial tasks are well documented, with the male advantage in the Mental Rotations Test (MRT) being one of the largest effects reported in psychological research. Numerous potential contributing factors have been examined, with recent studies highlighting the importance of individuals' beliefs in their spatial abilities. However, no study has directly manipulated these self-perceptions to assess their causal impact on cognitive performance. The present study investigated whether randomized normative feedback could alter participants' levels of spatial anxiety, spatial self-efficacy, and spatial self-confidence, and, in turn, affect MRT performance. Participants (n = 462; 98 cisgender men, 364 cisgender women) completed two MRT sets and were randomly allocated to receive positive, negative, or no feedback after the first set. Spatial self-perceptions were measured before and after feedback. Results revealed that feedback influenced cognitive performance similarly in cisgender men and women, but cisgender women were generally more likely to lower their spatial self-perceptions, both after feedback and even in its absence. All feedback types affected self-perceptions, but only false positive and true negative feedback affected cognitive performance. Notably, while both types of feedback benefitted cognitive performance, the effect of false positive feedback was mediated by increased self-confidence, whereas the effect of true negative feedback was unrelated to self-perception. These findings suggest that feedback can influence self-perception and cognitive performance through distinct mechanisms depending on its valence and accuracy.