Accounting for sex differences on the rod-and-frame test.

Abstract

In an attempt to account for sex differences in rod-and-frame test (RFT) performance two theoretical notions have been advanced. The most recent theorizing is contained in an extremely thought-provoking paper by Broverman, Klaiber, Kobayashi, and Vogel (1968). They refute what they have called the reward as a means of accounting for sex differences in a variety of cognitive tasks. For them, sex differences in the RFT are reflections of the balance between the activating influence of central adrenergic processes and the inhibitory influence of central cholinergic processes, which, in turn, are influenced by gonadal steroid 'sex' hormones (p. 27). While Broverman, et u1. (1968) have generated a tenable hypothesis to account for sex differences in the RFT, it is difficult to conceive of an adequate test of that hypothesis. Although the second hypothesis is by no means unique to the author, Vaught (1965), in a study specifically designed to account for sex differences in the RFT, showed that Ss regardless of biological sex, whose role identification was in the feminine direction made more errors in the RFT than those Ss whose role identification was in the more masculine direction. It was reasoned that the atuibutes accompanying each cultural role accounted for the differential RFT performance. For example, masculinity has long been associated with mechanical and scientific interests, and with preference for abstract and impersonal activities over aesthetic ones. When the female becomes interested in mechanical tasks and ocher pursuits requiring the ability to deal with spatial relationships, she would not only be identified as relatively masculine but she would also tend to make fewer errors in the RFT. Additional support for this hypothesis had come from a recent study by Barrett and Thornton (1967) who found engineers to be significantly more field independent than a sample of college students. Further support for the so-called reward has come from correlations between the Embeddedness sub-scale of Evans' (1969) Psychological Differentiation Inventory and RFT performance. Thirty-six male and 39 female college students produced correlations of .18 and .52 respectively. Only the correlation for women reached statistical significance (p < .01). Females who answered items such as Can you easily separate a figure from its background? in the yes direction, were more likely to make fewer errors in adjusting the rod to true vertical. It seems likely that the manifest content of the eight items of the Embeddedness sub-scale, reflect prior knowledge and experience with spatial relationships not ordinarily associated with the feminine role identity. Thus, females who have this background have an advantage in the RFT and that advantage shows up in scores in the direction of male performance.