The Impact Of The Threat Of Stereotypes On Women's Spatial Perspective-taking Ability: The Mediating Role Of Executive Function

If you go to dinner with your friend,how can you guide him/her to the restaurant?If you ask your roommates to help you find your book in the dormitory and take it to the library,how do you tell him/her exactly where the book is?In our daily life,we often need to stand on the perspective of others,which requires mobilizing our spatial perspective-taking ability to solve these problems.Spatial stereotype-taking refers to the process of imagining the world from another's viewpoint(Zacks&Michelon,2005).It plays an important role in daily life,especially in navigation(Creem-Regehr,Gagnon,Geuss,&Stefanucci,2013;Kozhevnikov&Hegarty,2001)and communication(Kessler&Wang,2012;Schober,1993).With the development of society,the gap between male's and female's spatial cognition is also shrinking,but stereotype about the poor spatial ability of female has been widely found in our daily life.There are many studies on the effect of stereotype threat on female's spatial ability.However,the relationship between stereotype threat and female's spatial perspective-taking has not been systematically studied.Therefore,our research focused on the effect of stereotype threat on spatial perspective-taking of female,and further explored in detail which executive functions mediate the relationship between stereotype threat and perspective-taking,inhibition,updating or shifting?This study used the experimental methods,which consisted of two experiments,both of which used the complete randomalized design(one-factor).In experiment 1,a total of 76 women were recruited as participants.They were randomly assigned to the stereotype threat group and the control group.First,the participants needed to complete the demographic scale and gender identity scale.And then,the stereotype threat of participants was primed by reading the materials.Then they were asked to complete a spatial perspective-taking test.Finally,participants completed the manipulation check scale.The results of experiment 1 were consistent with the hypothesis,the angular error of spatial perspective-taking test was significantly higher in the stereotype threat condition than the control condition.In the experiment 2,84 women were recruited as participants.Seven participants were excluded from analyses.The participants were randomly assigned to each condition and completed the demographic scale and gender identity scale.Then the participants were primed by reading the materials.Then the participants need to complete the execution function task.We use the Stroop task to measure the inhibition,use the Keep Track task to measure the updating,and use the Global-Local task to measure the shifting.The sequence of these tasks is designed by the Latin square.After that,the participants were asked to complete the perspective-taking test.At last,participants completed the manipulation check scale.Experiment 2 replicated the results from the previous experiment by showing that stereotype threat reduced women's spatial perspective-taking ability.The results indicated that women under threat showed lower inhibition than women in the control condition.The results for the updating task also showed an effect of stereotype threat.Women showed poorer updating in the stereotype threat condition than in the control condition.The stereotype threat manipulation did not affect performance on the shifting task.Further mediation analysis found that only inhibition,and not updating or shifting,mediated the effect of stereotype threat on women's spatial perspective-taking.The above results revealed that stereotype threat had negative effect on female perspective-taking ability.Females' performances were worse on the perspective-taking test in the stereotype threat condition than in the control condition.The stereotype threat has a negative impact on the performance of inhibition and updating and has no effect on the shifting.The effect of stereotype threat on female's spatial perspective-taking was partially accounted for by the executive function of inhibition;however,it was not explained by the executive functions of updating or shifting.These results provide a more detailed picture of the cognitive mechanisms that lead women experiencing threat to show poorer spatial perspective-taking.