Saylor URL: http://www.saylor.org/books Saylor.org
On average, men do better than women on tasks requiring spatial ability, such as the mental
rotation tasks shown in Figure 9.10 (Voyer, Voyer, & Bryden, 1995). [14] Boys tend to do better
than girls on both geography and geometry tasks (Vogel, 1996). [15] On the math part of the
Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT), boys with scores of 700 or above outnumber girls by more
than 10 to 1 (Benbow & Stanley, 1983), [16] but there are also more boys in the lowest end of the
distribution as well.
Figure 9.10
Men outperform women on measures of spatial rotation, such as this task requires, but women are better at
recognizing the emotions of others.
Source: Adapted from Halpern, D. F., Benbow, C. P., Geary, D. C., Gur, R. C., Hyde, J. S., & Gernsbache, M. A.
(2007). The science of sex differences in science and mathematics. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 8(1),
1–51.
Although these differences are real, and can be important, keep in mind that like virtually all sex
group differences, the average difference between men and women is small compared to the
average differences within each sex. There are many women who are better than the average man
on spatial tasks, and many men who score higher than the average women in terms of emotional