Picture yourself as a stereotypical male

mitadmissions.org

9 pointskarenxcheng4 comments

From the article: "As it turns out, there is zero statistically significant gender difference in mental rotation ability after test-takers are asked to imagine themselves as stereotypical men for a few minutes. None. An entire standard deviation of female underperformance is negated on this condition."

That's really surprising, if it's true.

I'd like to see this one replicated before I start believing it.

I wonder whether it could be useful for other things. If I want to be a better public speaker or tennis player, can I spend five minutes visualising myself as a better public speaker or tennis player? (I wouldn't be surprised if the answer is yes for the first since public speaking is so confidence-dependent, but what about the latter?)

That's really surprising, if it's true.

It's surprising that years of conditioning to perform worse at spatial reasoning can be mitigated by reading a couple of paragraphs, but that's all. People having an equal ability at a mental function regardless of their sex is not even remotely surprising.

This is particularly fascinating to think about in the context of all the companies proclaiming they hire "smart" engineers.

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