A Longitudinal Study of Predictors of Spatial Ability in Adolescent Females

• Published in: Child development Vol. 63; no. 1; pp. 37 - 46
• Main Authors: Newcombe, Nora, Dubas, Judith Semon
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Malden, MA University of Chicago Press 01.02.1992; Blackwell; University of Chicago Press for the Society for Research in Child Development, etc; Blackwell Publishing Ltd
• Subjects: Adolescence; Adolescent; Adolescents; Aptitude; Banduras; Biological and medical sciences; Body Composition; Cognition & reasoning; Cognitive Ability; Developmental psychology; Dominance, Cerebral; Early Maturation; Female; Females; Femininity; Follow-Up Studies; Functional Laterality; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Gender Identity; Humans; Longitudinal Studies; Masculinity; Menarche; Orientation; Pattern Recognition, Visual; Perceptions; Personality Assessment; Personality Development; Personality Traits; Predictive Measurement; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Puberty; School dropouts; Sex Differences; Sex linked differences; Sexual Maturation; Social research; Space Perception; Spatial Ability; Stereognosis; Wechsler Scales; Women; Human; Space; Puberty; Hemispheric specialization; Intelligence; Prediction; Central nervous system; Spatial ability; Cognition; Personality; Ideal ego; Adolescent; Female; Intellectual ability; Cognitive development; Laterality; Feminity masculinity
• ISSN: 0009-3920; 1467-8624
• DOI: 10.2307/1130899

This study examined the longitudinal predictability of spatial ability in late-adolescent females by retesting 11-year-old girls studied by Newcombe and Bandura at age 16. Spatial ability at age 16 was predicted longitudinally from masculinity of the ideal self on a scale of intellectually relevant attributes at age 11, wanting to be a boy at age 11, and, negatively, by feminine expressivity at age 11. No timing of puberty or lateralization effects were observed. The findings strengthen evidence that sex-related differences in spatial ability could be experientially determined, and help to focus the search for exactly how this occurs. The findings also cast doubt on the idea that sex-related differences in spatial ability could be caused by sex differences in timing of puberty or lateralization, although other biological mechanisms remain plausible.