Confidence is key to spatial awareness tasks
Does your other half take the mick out of you for struggling to park the car in a small space? A new study found spatial awareness is linked to confidence, so a little support would help you perform tasks such as parking and map-reading.
University of Warwick scientists found confidence levels play a key role in women’s ability to perform spatial tasks.
To test, the researchers looked at 545 women’s ability to perform a standard 3D mental rotation task, while at the same time manipulating their confidence levels in four computer-based experiments.
They found that when they made women feel more confident about themselves, their ability to perform the task improved.
The research paper, Confidence Mediates the Sex Difference in Mental Rotation Performance, is published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior.
University of Warwick psychology researcher Dr Zachary Estes said: “Prior research shows that women tend to do poorly on tasks that require spatial awareness.
“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.”
