GENDER DIFFERENCE IN HORIZONTALITY PERFORMANCE BEFORE AND AFTER TRAINING

To investigate why some individuals, especially females, fail Piaget's horizontality task, the author administered Piaget's horizontality ta sk, the rod and frame field-dependence task, Bem's Sex Role Inventory, and a history of spatial activities questionnaire to 122 undergraduat es. Individuals who failed the horizontality task were trained on this task, and after 1 month all participants were administered a horizont ality posttest. Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that field d ependence was related significantly to both pretest and posttest score s. Sex and masculine sex role concept were related to pretest but not to posttest scores. The implications of these findings for group diffe rences in horizontality performance are discussed.